Andriyan Grigoryevich Nikolayev was a Soviet cosmonaut. In 1962, aboard Vostok 3, he became the third Soviet cosmonaut to fly into space. Nikolayev was an ethnic Chuvash and because of it considered the first Turkic cosmonaut.
Nikolayev in 1976
Wedding of Tereshkova and Nikolayev in 1963
Tereshkova and Nikolayev with Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satō in 1965
Monument to Andriyan Nikolayev in Cheboksary
An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a Manned Maneuvering Unit outside Space Shuttle Challenger on shuttle mission STS-41-B in 1984
Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 (1961)
The first sixteen NASA astronauts to be selected, February 1963. Back row: White, McDivitt, Young, See, Conrad, Borman, Armstrong, Stafford, Lovell. Front row: Cooper, Grissom, Carpenter, Schirra, Glenn, Shepard, Slayton.
The first eleven Soviet cosmonauts to fly, July 1965. Back row, left to right: Leonov, Titov, Bykovsky, Yegorov, Popovich; front row: Komarov, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Nikolayev, Feoktistov, Belyayev.
