Long term cosmonauts Gennadiy Manakov and Aleksandr Polishchuk, who arrived at Mir on Jan. 24th, will be flying French Spationaut Jean-Pierre Haignere in the older Soyuz TM-16 capsule.

The next flight to the ISS is scheduled for April 19th and will be composed of Russian cosmonaut Guennady Padalka, American astronaut Michael Fincke and ESA Dutch spationaut André Kuipers. [ESA, AFP 04/02/2004, Air & Cosmos 04/09/2004]

Considering the weight problems that Hermes ran into, the astronauts probably thought that they were lucky to have seats, much less ejection seats, rather than slings to sit in. Something about an ESA spationaut putting their ass into a sling is unappealing.

Spationaut

Meaning

Noun