With China about to launch its second manned space mission as early as 2005-10-13, this is a timely GWOTD.
Quoting from the AP:
"State media say the launch might happen Thursday - almost exactly two years after the first Chinese manned space mission in 2003 - but the date hasn't been confirmed by the government."
AP Article:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/200510 ... 75GG0.html
An earilier AP article use the word "taikonaut" which I looked up in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut
Quoting from the Wikipedia article:
We wish our space-faring brethren a heart-felt "Godspeed!" even though they may be atheists.Taikonaut is sometimes used in English for astronauts from China by Western news media. The term was coined in May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media based on the term tàikōng (太空), Chinese for space. In Chinese itself, however, a single term yǔháng yuán (宇航員, "universe navigator") has long been used for astronauts and cosmonauts. The closest term using taikong is a colloquialism tàikōng rén (太空人, "space human") which refers to people who have actually been in space. Official English text issued by the Chinese government uses astronaut.