Astronaut

An astronaut, or cosmonaut, is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. While generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.

On the US/Australian science fiction television series Farscape, the main character John Crichton was an astronaut for the International Aeronautics and Space Administration (IASA). John followed in the footsteps of his father, Jack Crichton, who was a contemporary of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. John developed a theory which involved using the Earth's gravitational pull to increase propulsion on a spacecraft. To put his theory to the test, John designed the Farscape-1 space module. A shuttlecraft carried the Farscape-1 into Earth's orbit and John began circumnavigating the Earth's globe. IASA mission control picked up signs of a radiation storm and tried to warn John to abort the mission, but it was too late. The Farscape-1 entered the radiation cloud and was pulled through a wormhole, transporting John thousands of light years into another galaxy.