What is an astronaut?
Astronaut is a career aspiration that many, primarily younger children, indicate without them knowing what it actually is. You can simply explain the job to your child and at the same time arouse their interest in space travel.
Many children who are in kindergarten or in the primary school want to be an astronaut one day. Especially for boys, the thought of flying a rocket into the sky is a great fascination. Most children, however, do not even know what is involved in the job and that only a few people are eligible for it. With a simple explanation, you can teach your child about the work of an astronaut.
A spaceman is an astronaut
- An astronaut is a space traveler. This explanation is understandable for smaller children too. He gets into a rocket and flies into space. There he docks to a spaceship and meets other spacemen. Perhaps your child knows this process from a movie or a TV show and will understand it well.
- Such a job exerts a great fascination on every child. You shouldn't take this away from your child, but you should still explain why only very few people can realize this professional dream.
A simple explanation for training and assignments
- An astronaut has to go through very tough training. This takes several years. He must be healthy, must not be afraid of flying and must be ready to endure the limited life in a spaceship for a while. Talk about the ISS and tell them that the space travelers have been there for several months. They do not fly through space to complete missions or to fight aliens, but they mainly carry out research tasks.
- A spaceman has to be very good at school. He must complete a degree in a natural science field. Many space travelers are pilots, others are well-known scientists. Since the centers of space travel are in the United States and Russia, a spaceman must be able to speak the languages.
- Talk about weightlessness and also about the dangers that lurk in space. Explain that life in the spaceship is arduous and requires a lot of renunciation. You can't see your family and friends for a long time and you have to be in a very small space.
- Furthermore, your child should know that a spaceman usually only flies into space once or twice in their life. Otherwise he works on the ground and helps train other astronauts, for example.
The difference between a cosmonaut and an astronaut seems quite simple when ...
In this context, your child may also want to know what a cosmonaut is. This term denotes the same job description and comes from Russian, while the astronaut is American. During the GDR era, the term was more common, as a person who flew into space was referred to as a cosmonaut. During the division of Germany, East German astronauts were cosmonauts, while West German astronauts were known as astronauts.
