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

Search: astronaut vs cosmonaut

Why: In "SVU" (did y'all watch the 14 hour marathon yesterday?), a crazy guy (played by Chris Elliott) said something like, "I have most of the astronauts' autographs. Some of the cosmonauts', too."

Answer: A cosmonaut is Russian! The term is a relic from the Cold War and the Space Race. Both the words come from Greek:

• astronaut = ástron (ἄστρον), "star" + nautes (ναύτης), "sailor"
• cosmonaut / kosmonavt (космонавт in Russian) = kosmos (κόσμος), "universe" + nautes (ναύτης), "sailor"

Yuri Gagarin was the first human cosmonaut. On April 12, 1961, he became the first human in outer space and the first to orbit the Earth. On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman cosmonaut. On March 14, 1995, Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus the first "American cosmonaut."

Source: Metafilter, Wikipedia

The More You Know: This is "Mir" by The Kicks, who used to be called Ashtray Babyhead. This was one of the first songs I downloaded on Napster in like 2001. I have no idea how I even knew they existed. Anyway, the chorus goes:

Cosmonaut, cosmonaut
I wanna be an astronaut (yo-ooh)