It's getting crowded in space. A record number of 19 people are in the heavens. A three-person crew on a Russian Soyuz capsule docked at the ISS to break the record. A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts were on that mission. Chinese astronauts are part of the record. There are three "taikonauts" on the Tiangong Space Station. The remaining four space travellers are part of a SpaceX mission, which saw the first ever civilian spacewalk.
There is disagreement over the record. NASA and the U.S. military say the border between Earth and outer space is 80 km above sea level. With this measure, the record for humans in space was set at 20 in May 2023. However, the conventional definition of the edge of space is the Karman Line. The International Aeronautical Federation puts this at an altitude of 100 km above sea level. The new record uses this definition.
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Sources- https://mashable.com/article/nasa-record-number-of-humans-in-space
- https://www.space.com/new-record-19-people-orbiting-earth-soyuz-iss
- https://www.iflscience.com/new-world-record-set-with-19-humans-in-earth-orbit-at-the-same-time-75926
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