• Archangel@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    No. They weren’t “trained to travel in a spacecraft”. It was fully automated. They were just passengers on an 11 minute flight.

    Seriously, if that makes them astronauts…then everyone who’s been on an airplane, is a pilot.

    • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Yuri Gagarin’s flight was entirely automated. He went a bit higher and made a full orbit, but I’m pretty sure everyone agrees he’s an astronaut.

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      10 hours ago

      The first ‘astronauts’ were “spam in a can.” Yuri Garagin didn’t have any controls in his craft, nor did the first few American astronauts. An ‘astronaut’ is anyone who has gone more than 60 miles up. And yes, if you have been in an airplane you can call yourself a ‘flier.’

      • Archangel@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        Wait. Are we seriously saying that Katy Perry and Gayle King are on par with Yuri Gagarin now? This just gets funnier by the minute.

    • DrWorm@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      “If my Grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike” --Gino D’Acampo

    • MBech@feddit.dk
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      10 hours ago

      Did they travel in a spacecraft, and did they recieve the necessary training to do so?

      Not all astronauts pilot the spacecraft, and most going to eg. the ISS don’t actually do anything while going to the station. That trip is also just an automated flight, controlled by the onboard computer.

      It’s more akin to, “if that makes them astronauts, then people who have traveled on an airplane, has recieved the training to travel in an airplane.”