How Many People Are In Space Right Now?

http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/

by jonmc12 • 15 years ago

106 41 15 years ago

savrajsingh2• 15 years ago

(that civilians know about :))

zyb09• 15 years ago

yea pretty sure there are another couple hundred people on the secret CIA space ship, conspiring in space about their evil plan to take over the world.

spicyj• 15 years ago

I think the grandparent was referring to extraterrestrial life that we haven't discovered.

savrajsingh2• 15 years ago

The SR71 was a secret for a long time. Now it's in museums. What secret aircraft/spacecraft do we have now? Beyond the x37? The military budget is orders of mag greater than NASAs. That's what I meant.

horseshoes• 15 years ago

Isn't it closer to 4 billion? Probably more, that we don't know about yet?

Edit: Sorry, 6 billion. Didn't mean to make you think 2 bil. people died.

mtogo• 15 years ago

Why is horseshoes being downvoted? He's exactly right, there are about 6.79 billion[1] people in space[2] right now. There are 10 in outer space, but the domain isn't howmanypeopleareinouterspacerightnow.com

[1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+earth

[2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space

Sacrificiality• 15 years ago

And this is why geeks are considered 'retarded'.

Do you really miss the point? No. Pedantic bullshit trolls. Wave to the camera!

jamesaguilar• 15 years ago

I just got shivers as I pictured the changes that would occur on this site over the next three or four centuries were it kept up to date for all that time.

lmarinho• 15 years ago

Hope the real change in that value doesn't disappoints us. If I travelled in time from 1970 to today and looked at this site I surely would be disappointed.

a3_nm2• 15 years ago

According to an unsourced claim on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human), the largest value ever reached for this number was 13 (which is surprisingly low).

sehugg• 15 years ago

Here's a citation (http://www.universetoday.com/27924/soyuz-rockets-to-space-13...) it last happened in 2009. Three ISS, seven shuttle, and three Soyuz. It also happened in 1995 (Mir) and 1997.

a3_nm2• 15 years ago

Awesome, thanks! Wikipedia article updated.

dlokshin• 15 years ago

More specifically, this is the number of live people in space. I'd be curious to know how many dead people are in space as well (the ones who had their body's launched upon passing).

sjs2• 15 years ago

That's a really cool thought, that some of us "star dust" creatures went back out into the stars. They are 5 billion years ahead of the rest of us :)

alanfalcon• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial

Note that some of them only have sub-orbital "burials" and end up back home.

Personally I'd be cool with being buried on the moon. Preferably in a giant monolith. Perhaps through http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/01/idea_crowdfund_a_mission_t...

tripplesix• 15 years ago

The number may be larger than we know because of the undocumented disappearances of early Soviet cosmonauts. Although Yuri Gagarin is widely believed to be the first man in space, it is highly probable that he was only the first man to survive space travel.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

This is a conspiracy theory with absolutely no solid evidence behind it.

shii• 15 years ago

They make you autofollow once you visit the page and are signed into Tumblr, not cool.

sjs2• 15 years ago

Not for me. (Chrome, OS X)

jcnnghm3• 15 years ago

I think it's kind of surprising how low the number is. Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded.

Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the NASA budget, and there are a couple of things I think many people don't know. The total 2010 US Space budget was $64.6B. The entire rest of the world combined spent only $22.5B. NASA's 2010 budget was $18.7B, 83% of the spending for the rest of the world. It's more than a little ironic when those outside the United States criticize cuts to US space spending. Europeans, in particular, may want to consider the paltry $4.6B ESA budget before they criticize the United States. Space spending does need to increase; the rest of the worlds needs to start contributing.

davidhollander3• 15 years ago

>Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded.

Or because there is currently no benefit in conducting exploration using humans instead of robots.

jcnnghm3• 15 years ago

Because we can is almost always a poor reason to do something, but this may be an edge case.

InclinedPlane2• 15 years ago

Don't confuse underfunded with badly managed. NASA has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on manned spaceflight in the last 5 decades, they went to the moon, they built two space stations, but ultimately they haven't done much to push the state of the art or to make spaceflight more accessible or affordable.

In contrast, a little company like SpaceX comes along and develops two new launch vehicles AND a crew capsule for about $300 million total, dramatically lowering launch costs in the process. This is how we'll increase that number. Not by pumping more money into yet another aerospace jobs program in key congressional districts, but by encouraging the open market and innovation.

jbooth• 15 years ago

I'd cut them a break on "badly managed", blazing the trail is much more expensive than following -- and I really don't see how you can say "they haven't done much to push the state of the art".

But it does seem that it's time to pass the torch to private companies for basic "get to orbit" flights. Would be nice to see NASA blazing the next trail, whatever that is.

daniel_solano• 15 years ago

Is that the space exploration budget, or NASA's budget as a whole? Manned and unmanned space exploration is only part of NASA's mission. NASA also does a lot of Earth science.

tobylane• 15 years ago

It is possible to criticize the change, comparing that rather than the total. Foreign aid, and many other things are judged this way.

ignifero• 15 years ago

first, astronauts do not really explore space, they mostly operate light machinery. Frankly the mars rovers were the most active space explorers till now.

Secondly, why does humanity need to invest in space right now? I just dont think there's an incentive, people believe life sciences are more important at this time.

idlewords• 15 years ago

Not enough.

jackfoxy• 15 years ago

This is a testament to how damned expensive it is to get into space. There is no subverting the laws of physics.

nazgulnarsil• 15 years ago

get out of earth's gravity well and you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system, energy wise.

btilly• 15 years ago

On NPR this morning I heard that the total number who have ever been in space is about 550. That was a lot more than I thought it was.

arihant• 15 years ago

I think they mean 'Not on Earth'. Being on Earth is same as being in Space. Earth is in Space.

ryanklee• 15 years ago

No, they mean "in Space". Why attempt to subvert the obviously standard usage of the word? It's just silly.

jgroome• 15 years ago

This site may actually bankrupt NASA if they keep hotlinking that 1.7mb background image.

prtk• 15 years ago

Too many satellites. Too few people. Seems like space is infested with robots. Gentlemen machines are winning! And it will be my 1001th(in decimal) birthday before I go where no man has gone before. :(

How Many People Are In Space Right Now?

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