astronautics

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Science of space

Nouns

1. (sciences of space) astronautics, cosmonautics, space travel or flight, manned or unmanned flight; space or celestial navigation, astrogation, astronavigation; outer- or interplanetary space, interplanetary travel; aerospace; aerospace science or medicine, exobiology; rocketry. See aviation, propulsion.

2. rocket, spaceship, spacecraft, booster rocket; command or service module, lunar [excursion] module, lunar lander, rover, LEM; [ascent or descent] stage; air lock; launch pad; nose cone, heat shield; capsule, cargo bay; space station, space laboratory, Mir, Skylab, Spacelab, spaceport; [communications, weather, observation, etc. ] satellite; space shuttle, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, etc.; [space] probe, Pioneer, Mariner, Surveyor, Viking, Voyager; Jupiter, Saturn, Titan; Sputnik, Vostok, Gemini, Mercury, Soyuz; mission control; flying saucer, unidentified flying object, UFO. Informal, bird.

3. drop-off, capsule; docking; countdown, [number for] go, backout; blastoff, launch, liftoff; separation, blowoff, burnout; payload; injection or insertion [into orbit]; launch site, Cape Kennedy, Cape Canaveral, cosmodrome; escape velocity, launch window, reentry corridor; reentry, splashdown; footprint; downlink; liquid or solid propellant.

4. free fall, weightlessness; space walk, extravehicular activity, EVA, extravehicular mobility unit; zero gravity; decompression sickness.

5. (space traveler) astronaut, cosmonaut, spaceman or -woman; space suit; alien. Slang, spaghetti suit.

Verbs — launch, blast off; abort; dock; touch down, impact; inject or insert into orbit; space-walk.

Adjectives — astronautical, cosmonautical.

Quotations — That's one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind (Neil Armstrong).