How Many People Have Been to Space?
More than 780 people have flown above the 80 km boundary used by the United States, the figure most often quoted when people ask how many humans have been to space. Fewer have crossed the 100 km Kármán line used for international records, because several suborbital tourist flights peak between the two. The count rises with every crewed launch, so treat any total as a snapshot rather than a closed list.
Where Does Space Begin?
Two boundaries are in common use, which is why published totals disagree. The Kármán line at 100 km is the international standard for aeronautical records. The United States military and its civil agencies instead award astronaut status above 50 miles, roughly 80 km. Orbital flights clear both by a wide margin, so the distinction only matters for suborbital tourism: New Shepard flights pass 100 km, while SpaceShipTwo flights typically peak around 86 km, above the American boundary but below the Kármán line. Every figure on this page states which boundary it uses.
Astronauts by Country
The United States and Russia, including the Soviet era, account for roughly two thirds of everyone who has flown. International participation has grown steadily through International Space Station partnership agreements, guest cosmonaut programmes and, more recently, commercial missions that sell seats directly to national space agencies.
| Country | Approximate Total | Agency / Programme |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 United States | ~380 | NASA, USAF, commercial (SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, Axiom) |
| 🇷🇺 Russia / USSR | ~134 | Roscosmos and the Soviet space programme |
| 🇨🇳 China | ~25 | CMSA: Shenzhou and Tiangong |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | ~15 | JAXA: station expeditions and Shuttle missions |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | ~14 | CSA: Shuttle missions and long-duration station flights |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | ~12 | ESA and DLR: Spacelab, Mir, ISS |
| 🇫🇷 France | ~10 | ESA and CNES: Salyut, Mir, ISS, Shuttle |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | ~8 | ESA and ASI: Shuttle, ISS, commercial missions |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | ~3 | ESA (Tim Peake) and Helen Sharman via the Soviet programme |
| 🇮🇳 India | 2 | Rakesh Sharma (1984, Soviet guest cosmonaut) and Shubhanshu Shukla (2025, first Indian aboard the ISS); the crewed Gaganyaan programme is in development |
Spaceflight Records and Milestones
| Record | Holder | Details |
|---|---|---|
| First human in space | Yuri Gagarin (USSR) | Vostok 1, 12 April 1961: a single orbit in 108 minutes |
| First woman in space | Valentina Tereshkova (USSR) | Vostok 6, 16 June 1963: 48 orbits over three days |
| First spacewalk (EVA) | Alexei Leonov (USSR) | Voskhod 2, 18 March 1965: 12 minutes outside the spacecraft |
| First Moon landing | Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin (USA) | Apollo 11, 20 July 1969 |
| Most time in space (cumulative) | Oleg Kononenko (Russia) | 1,111 days across five missions, set on his return in September 2024 |
| Longest single spaceflight | Valeri Polyakov (Russia) | 437 days aboard Mir in 1994 and 1995 |
| Most spaceflights | Franklin Chang-Díaz & Jerry Ross (USA) | 7 Shuttle missions each |
| Most EVAs | Anatoly Solovyev (Russia) | 16 spacewalks totalling more than 82 hours |
| Oldest person in space | Ed Dwight (USA) | Aged 90 years 8 months, suborbital New Shepard flight, May 2024. Selected as the first Black astronaut candidate in 1961, he reached space 63 years later |
| First all-civilian orbital crew | Inspiration4 | Crew Dragon, September 2021 |
| First commercial space station crew | Axiom Mission 1 | Crew Dragon to the ISS, April 2022 |
NASA Astronaut Corps
NASA's active corps numbers around 40 to 50 members at any time, selected across 24 classes since the original Mercury Seven in 1959. Candidates train for roughly two years at the Johnson Space Center in Houston before becoming eligible for assignment. Since the Shuttle retired in 2011, NASA astronauts have reached orbit aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon, with Boeing Starliner intended as a second provider. The Artemis programme will return crews to lunar distance for the first time since Apollo.
Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps
Russia has maintained continuous crewed spaceflight capability since 1961. Cosmonauts are selected and trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre at Star City near Moscow. Soyuz remains the only active Russian crewed vehicle, carrying cosmonauts and partner astronauts to the ISS, and Russia has outlined a successor station, ROSS, to follow its participation in the current programme. Soyuz also flies as a launch vehicle for uncrewed payloads.
Chinese Taikonauts
China's crew corps is selected and trained by the astronaut centre in Beijing, and has grown from a small group of military test pilots to include mission specialists and payload experts. Crew rotations to Tiangong run roughly every six months aboard Shenzhou spacecraft from Jiuquan. Yang Liwei became China's first taikonaut in 2003 aboard Shenzhou 5, making China the third country to launch a human into orbit independently.
ESA Astronaut Corps
The European Space Agency maintains a small but active corps, most recently expanded through a 2022 selection that added five career astronauts plus a reserve pool. ESA astronauts fly as part of long-duration station expeditions, typically launching on Crew Dragon. Recent names include Thomas Pesquet of France, Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy, Alexander Gerst of Germany and Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, who commanded a station expedition in 2023.
Commercial and Private Spaceflight
Commercial programmes have changed the shape of the count. SpaceX has flown private orbital crews on Crew Dragon, including Inspiration4, Polaris Dawn and the Axiom missions. Blue Origin's New Shepard carries passengers on short suborbital hops above the Kármán line, and Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo flies above the American boundary. Together these have added more people to the list in five years than some national programmes managed in fifty, and they are the main reason the 80 km and 100 km totals now diverge.