ASTRONAUT

Until 2003, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military, or by civilian space agencies. However, with the first sub-orbital flight of the privately-funded Spaceshipone in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut. With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participants" to distinguish those space travelers from astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.

The criteria for what constitutes human Spaceflight vary. The  FAI Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi). However, in the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 80 kilometers .

As of May 31, 2008, a total of 482 humans from 39 COUNTRIES  have reached 100 km or more in altitude, of which 479 reached Low earth orbit or beyond]. Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond Low Earth orbit, to either lunar or trans-lunar orbit or to the surface of the moon; three of the 24 did so twice (Lovell, Young and Cernan). Under the U. S. definition, 488 people qualify as having reached space. Space travelers have spent over 30,400 person days(or a cumulative total of over 83 years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks. As of 2008, the man with the longest time in space is Sergei K. Krikalev, who has spent 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes, or 2.2 years, in space. PPeggey.A .Whitson holds the record for most time in space by a woman, 377 days.