What's the difference between an astronaut and a cosmonaut?

Answer 1

Astronaut and cosmonaut are the names given to people who travel in space, either as a pilot or crew member of a spacecraft. Astronaut is widely used by English-speaking countries, cosmonaut is used by Russia. Other countries like China use completely different words for space traveler.

But they are essentially the same thing, astronaut being an American version and cosmonaut generally referring to Russian space travelers. It is the English rendering of the Russian word Kosmonavt