Special Report
The Number of Space Travelers Every Year Since Space Travel Began
Published:
Since Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first human to go into space in 1961, more than 500 people have traveled into the great beyond. Some estimates, including those from the United States Air Force, put the total at 628.
Over the 61-year span, the human pathways into the so-called final frontier have been marked by triumph, milestones, discovery, wonder, and tragedy. And people continue to push the boundaries of human endeavor into space.
To determine the number of individuals who went into space every year since 1961, 24/7 Tempo, referred to data from Worldspaceflight.com, Spacefacts, Space.com, NASA, encyclopedic sources, and various media websites to compile this list. We tallied only those who had gone into space for the first time in a particular year for this list.
The first decade of space travel involved competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, as the two superpowers took their Cold War confrontation beyond the confines of Earth. The first space travelers from both countries were affiliated with the military. Gradually the two programs began including scientists and those from other fields in space travel.
The Soviet Union exploited its early advantage after the launch of the first satellite Sputnik in 1957 with some notable space firsts. Besides Gagarin’s initial space journey, other Soviet Union triumphs included the first woman in space in 1963, Valentina Tereshkova, and the first person to walk in space, Alexei Leonov, in 1965.
The U.S. was playing catch-up and there were tragedies along the way. A major setback occurred in 1967 when Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee died during a routine ground test of the capsule. It would not be the last disaster for the U.S. space program. (These are the most important events in NASA’s history.)
The Apollo program vaulted the United States into the technological lead, and on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. Though other nations have landed space probes on the lunar surface, only the U.S. has actually landed people there. (These are the 12 people who have walked on the moon.)
Click here to see the number of space travelers every year since space travel began
Competition gave way to cooperation between the United States and Soviet Union in the 1970s as the two former space adversaries carried out joint missions starting in July 1975.
Space travel became more or less routine in the 1980s with the start of the space-shuttle program and the launch of the international space station, which became truly international as other nations began providing space travelers for the ISS.
Dennis Zito became the first paying space tourist in 2001, and private companies, led by maverick mogul Elon Musk, are leaping into the realm.
1961
> Number of unique people who went to space: 2
> Number of space flights: 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, aboard the Vostok. He was followed by German Titov in another flight later in 1961.
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1962
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 3 U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: John Glenn becomes the first American in orbit aboard the Mercury spacecraft.
1963
> Number of unique people who went to space: 3
> Number of space flights: 1 U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Valentina Tereshkova becomes first female cosmonaut.
1964
> Number of unique people who went to space: 3
> Number of space flights: 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: First spacecraft with three crew members
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1965
> Number of unique people who went to space: 12
> Number of space flights: 1 Soviet, 5 U.S.
> Notable person or achievement: Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first person to leave a space capsule in a space walk. Edward White is the first U.S. astronaut to do so three months later.
1966
> Number of unique people who went to space: 10
> Number of space flights: 5 U.S.
> Notable person or achievement: First orbital docking involving U.S. spacecraft.
1967
> Number of unique people who went to space: 1
> Number of space flights: 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov crashes on re-entry, becoming the first human fatality during a space flight.
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1968
> Number of unique people who went to space: 7
> Number of space flights: 2 U.S., 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Apollo 7 – first live TV broadcast from American spacecraft. Apollo 8 – first crewed lunar orbit.
1969
> Number of unique people who went to space: 20
> Number of space flights: 4 U.S., 5 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Neil Armstrong of the U.S. becomes first human to walk on the moon.
1970
> Number of unique people who went to space: 2
> Number of space flights: 1 U.S., 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Cosmonaut endurance test. Apollo 13 moon landing aborted
1971
> Number of unique people who went to space: 8
> Number of space flights: I U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Apollo 15 crew was the first to use a lunar roving vehicle.
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1972
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 2 U.S.
> Notable person or achievement: Apollo 17 was the last mission in which humans traveled to the moon.
1973
> Number of unique people who went to space: 11
> Number of space flights: 3 U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: First Skylab missions. U.S.-Soviet political tensions that had accelerated the space race began to thaw. Competition gave way to cooperation between the two nations with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
1974
> Number of unique people who went to space: 3
> Number of space flights: 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Two Soviet Soyuz missions for military reasons and for endurance.
1975
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: Joint Soviet-American mission
> Notable person or achievement: First crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union.
1976
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Soviet Union flew three flights to Salyut 5 space station in 1976. The objectives were mainly military.
1977
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Soviet Union ended one space station, Salyut 5, and then started another, Salyut 6, featuring the first long-duration crew.
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1978
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 5 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: First non-U.S.-Soviet space travelers — Vladimir Remek of Czechoslovakia and Miroslaw Hermaszewski from Poland.
1979
> Number of unique people who went to space: 2
> Number of space flights: 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz 32 was the third long-duration crew to man the space station.
1980
> Number of unique people who went to space: 7
> Number of space flights: 6 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: More space travelers from communist countries Vietnam, Cuba, and Hungary on Soyuz flights.
1981
> Number of unique people who went to space: 6
> Number of space flights: 2 U.S., 3 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Robert Crippen is first new U.S. space traveler in five years. First space shuttle flight.
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1982
> Number of unique people who went to space: 8
> Number of space flights: 3 U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Jean-Loup Chrétien was the French person to fly on a joint French-Soviet mission
1983
> Number of unique people who went to space: 17
> Number of space flights: 3 U.S., 2 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Guion Bluford was the first African-American in space.
1984
> Number of unique people who went to space: 17
> Number of space flights: 5 U.S., 3 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Rakesh Sharma flew with the Soviet Union, becoming the first Indian person to fly into space. Anna Fisher of the U.S. became the first mother to fly in space.
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1985
> Number of unique people who went to space: 40
> Number of space flights: 9 U.S., 1 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: 1985 was a busy year for space travel with 10 missions.
1986
> Number of unique people who went to space: 7
> Number of space flights: 2 U.S.
> Notable person or achievement: NASA lost a crew of seven in the 1986 Challenger accident. First expedition to Soviet space station Mir.
1987
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 3 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TM-4 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight to Mir, launched on Dec. 21, 1987.
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1988
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 1 U.S., 3 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: STS-27 was the 27th space shuttle mission, and the third flight of space shuttle Atlantis. It was the second shuttle flight after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
1989
> Number of unique people who went to space: 8
> Number of space flights: 5 U.S.
> Notable person or achievement: Deployment of Galileo and Magellan probes.
1990
> Number of unique people who went to space: 17
> Number of space flights: 5 U.S., 3 Soviet
> Notable person or achievement: STS-36 space shuttle carried a classified payload
1991
> Number of unique people who went to space: 22
> Number of space flights: 6 U.S., 1 Soviet, 1 United Kingdom
> Notable person or achievement: Helen Sharman became Britain’s first astronaut. The Soyuz TM-13 mission included cosmonauts from Austria and Kazakhstan.
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1992
> Number of unique people who went to space: 23
> Number of space flights: 8 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Eight shuttle missions in 1992. Nine different nations sent people into space.
1993
> Number of unique people who went to space: 18
> Number of space flights: 6 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: 88 experiments conducted by 11 nations on STS-55.
1994
> Number of unique people who went to space: 16
> Number of space flights: 6 Shuttle missions, 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TM-20 was the twentieth expedition to the Russian Space Station Mir.
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1995
> Number of unique people who went to space: 17
> Number of space flights: 7 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Eileen Collins became the first female commander and first woman pilot of a space shuttle on Space Transportation System (STS)-63.
1996
> Number of unique people who went to space: 15
> Number of space flights: 4 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-72 was a mission to capture and return to Earth a Japanese microgravity research spacecraft.
1997
> Number of unique people who went to space: 16
> Number of space flights: 5 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TM-26 was a Russian spaceflight that ferried cosmonauts and supplies to Mir.
> Number of unique people who went to space: 16
> Number of space flights: 5 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TM-26 was a Russian spaceflight that ferried cosmonauts and supplies to Mir.
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1998
> Number of unique people who went to space: 16
> Number of space flights: 5 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-91 was the final space shuttle mission to the Mir space station.
1999
> Number of unique people who went to space: 6
> Number of space flights: 3 Shuttle missions, 1 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-96 was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Discovery, and the first shuttle flight to dock at the International Space Station.
2000
> Number of unique people who went to space: 7
> Number of space flights: 3 Shuttle missions, 1 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: The primary objective of the mission of STS-99 was the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission project.
2001
> Number of unique people who went to space: 12
> Number of space flights: 6 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TM-32 was a crewed Soyuz spaceflight that docked with the International Space Station. The crew included the first paying space tourist Dennis Tito.
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2002
> Number of unique people who went to space: 17
> Number of space flights: 5 Shuttle missions, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-111 was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station flown by Space Shuttle Endeavour.
2003
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 1 Shuttle, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: STS-107 was the 113th flight of the space shuttle program, and the final flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. An in-flight break-up during re-entry into the atmosphere on Feb. 1 killed all seven crew members and disintegrated Columbia. On Oct. 15, 2003, China became the third nation to independently launch an astronaut into Earth orbit atop its own Long March 2F rocket.
2004
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 2 private flights, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Flight 15P of SpaceShipOne was the first privately funded human spaceflight. It took place on June 21, 2004.
2005
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 1 Shuttle, 1 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: STS-114, or Discovery, was the first “Return to Flight” Space Shuttle mission following the Columbia disaster.
2006
> Number of unique people who went to space: 12
> Number of space flights: 3 Shuttle, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-115 was a space shuttle mission to the International Space Station flown by Space Shuttle Atlantis. Anousheh Ansari was the first female space tourist.
2007
> Number of unique people who went to space: 13
> Number of space flights: 3 Shuttle, 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TMA-10 was a mission using a Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to transport personnel to and from the International Space Station.
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2008
> Number of unique people who went to space: 22
> Number of space flights: 4 Shuttle, 2 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: Shenzhou 7 was the third human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program. It included the first Chinese extra-vehicular activity.
2009
> Number of unique people who went to space: 22
> Number of space flights: 5 American, 4 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-125 was the fifth and final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope and the last solo flight of the space shuttle Atlantis.
2010
> Number of unique people who went to space: 9
> Number of space flights: 1 shuttle, 4 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: STS-131 was a mission to the International Space Station and the longest for space shuttle Discovery.
2011
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: All space missions were Russian in 2011. Soyuz TMA-21, also called “Gagarin” in homage to the first person in space.
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2012
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian, 2 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: Shenzhou 9 was the second spacecraft and first crewed mission and expedition to dock with the Tiangong-1 space station. The crew included the first Chinese female astronaut, Liu Yang.
2013
> Number of unique people who went to space: 6
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: One widely reported event of this mission was the space lecture by space traveler Wang Yaping.
2014
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 4 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Samantha Cristoforetti performed the longest single spaceflight by a woman.
2015
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz TMA-17M transported three members of the Expedition 44 crew to the International Space Station.
2016
> Number of unique people who went to space: 6
> Number of space flights: 4 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: Shenzhou 11 was a crewed spaceflight of the Shenzhou program of China. It was China’s sixth crewed space mission.
2017
> Number of unique people who went to space: 4
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz MS-06 was a Soyuz spaceflight that transported three members of the Expedition 53 crew to the International Space Station.
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2018
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Four Soyuz missions launched in 2018. Soyuz MS-10 was a crewed Soyuz MS spaceflight that aborted shortly after launch on Oct. 11. It was the first Russian crewed booster accident in 35 years.
2019
> Number of unique people who went to space: 5
> Number of space flights: 3 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: Soyuz MS-13 was a crewed Soyuz mission launched on July 20, 2019 – the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing – carrying three members of the Expedition 60 crew to the International Space Station.
2020
> Number of unique people who went to space: 3
> Number of space flights: 1 U.S., 2 Russian
> Notable person or achievement: SpaceX Crew-1 was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft.
2021
> Number of unique people who went to space: 26
> Number of space flights: 5 private flights, 3 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: Most first-time travelers ever in one year, including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
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2022
> Number of unique people who went to space: 19
> Number of space flights: 4 private flights, 1 Russian, 1 Chinese
> Notable person or achievement: Three private companies launched rockets in 2022 as of June 5.
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