In the entire history of manned space flights, 631 people from 43 countries have been to space, including 82 women from 13 countries. These data, covering both professional cosmonauts and astronauts, and space tourists, are cited by TASS.
According to the presented statistics, the undisputed leader in the number of people who have completed space flights is the United States with 369 representatives. In second place is the USSR/Russia with 138 cosmonauts, and China is in third place with 24 taikonauts. Among other countries that have sent their citizens into space are Japan (14 people), Germany, including the GDR (13), Canada (11), France (10), Italy (8) and Saudi Arabia (3).
Two representatives from Belgium, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Israel, the Netherlands, the UAE and Sweden have also been in space. Another 21 countries have sent one representative into space, including Australia, India, Malaysia, Turkey and other countries.
It is noteworthy that the world record holder for the total time spent in space is a native of Turkmenistan, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who spent 1 110 days, 14 hours, 58 minutes and 37 seconds in orbit over five missions.
Russia celebrates Cosmonautics Day on April 12 in honor of the world’s first human flight into space, made by Yuri Gagarin in 1961.
