Demographics of Human Population in Space (1961-present)

The latest topic I’ve been investigating is the history of human space travel, specifically, the number of humans over time, and what percentage of humanity that represents. After crunching the numbers, I have some interesting topline trends which I hope you find interesting. Before getting into it, one note- this analysis only includes people in orbital space, not individuals who have technically passed the Karman line, such as the Blue Origin tourist flights. With that, first up, the number of humans in space over time:

A few interesting trends to point hour here: first, there has been a general uptick in the number of humans in space over the last 70 years. In fact, humanity has had a continuous presence in space since September 2000- 23 years! Prior to that, the presence was more sporadic, with shorter term missions such as the Space Shuttle and Apollo program. Second, the record for the most humans in space at once actually came this May, when 17 humans from five missions (Soyuz MS-22, USCV-5, Shenzhou 15, Shenzhou 16, and Axiom 2) were all in space at the same time. This surpassed the old record of 14.

This chart shows that the human space presence was sporadic until the 1980s, when the Space Shuttle and regular Soyuz missions made 5-10 people in space the norm. Around the year 2000, the nature of space travel changed from 2 week shuttle missions to longer term missions at the International Space Station. After the shuttle program ended in 2011, it was a relatively stable presence until 2020 when the United States regained the ability to transport astronauts to the space station. Shortly after that, the Chinese began their manned station and there was an increase in tourist orbital spaceflights such as Axiom Space, allowing the human presence in space to be larger than ever before.

Next, I was curious to look at these numbers in the context of the percentage of humanity that is currently in space, that is, the number of people in space divided by the global population. That view yields this:

Interestingly, the largest portion of humanity ever in space was in April 1984 when 11 humans, one out of 433 million, was in space. Since the global population has nearly doubled since then, it has not been surpassed.

I also was curious to see a smoother trend view, so below is the 12 month average, first just in terms of numbers of people in space, and adjusted for percentage of global population:

This view sheds a more positive light on the trend of humanity’s presence in space. In fact, the 12 month average for humans in space is at an all time high, with a 12 month average of 12.5 people in space. The per capita basis peaked in 1984, but is trending upwards.

Another view I was interested in seeing was the number of living people that have been to space:

Here, you can see a gradual increase through the early Apollo and Soyuz program, an acceleration during the early Shuttle program, a drop and plateau immediately after the Challenger Disaster in 1986 and the Columbia disaster in 2003, a plateau as the Shuttle program ended and older astronauts began to die as quickly as new ones flew to space, and a recent uptick with the advent of the Commercial Crew Program and the Chinese Space Station. In fact, the number of living people that have been to space, 485, is the highest it has ever been. On a per capita basis, however, the story looks a bit different:

This view has mostly declined since the end of the Space Shuttle Program, and will likely continue for the next few years, unless the rate of humans flying to space dramatically accelerates, because the average age of a person that has been to space is currently approximately 65. It peaked on June 15, 2010 when 1 in every 15.4 million people on Earth had been to space. Today it is approximately 1 in every 16.6 million.

So what does the forecast look like for the next few years? US Commercial Crewed, Russian Soyuz, and Chinese Shenzhou will likely continue as normal. Tourist flights such as Axiom Space will also continue, potentially at a slightly lower frequency than the last few years. The Artemis Program, the American program to send astronauts back to the moon, will be starting up next year, but overall the numbers will likely stay fairly unstable until at least 2025. The number of new individuals flying to space will likely mean that the growth of the population that has been to space will exceed the rate of overall population growth, but the number of humans in space at the same time will likely not surpass 17.

There are also a few unknowns that could change things. First is the Indian manned space program. The Gaganyaan spacecraft is scheduled to take the first 3 Indian astronauts to space in late 2024. If this program stays on schedule, that could be a fourth nation independently flying to space, creating opportunities to increase all metrics. Perhaps more significantly, if Elon Musk’s Starship can begin taking humans into orbit, this has the potential to dramatically increase the number of humans going to space. Yusaku Maezawa’s dearMoon project alone aims to take 9 individuals to space. It will be exciting to see these developments unfold in the coming years.

Other space facts from this analysis:

Person who has spent the most time in space: Gennady Padalka- Russian cosmonaut who has spent 878 days, 3.7% of his life, in space.

Oleg Kononenko, who is currently in space, is scheduled to surpass this record with the potential to be in space over 1000 days.

Woman and American with most time in space: Peggy Whitson- 675 days

Non American/Russian with most time in space: Koichi Wakata (Japan)- 504 days

Number of individuals who have been in space at least a year total: 52

Number of individuals who have been in space total: 606

Individual with the longest continuous spaceflight: Valeri Polyakov- 437 days

Top nationalities that have been to space: (US- 361, Russia- 124, China- 18, Japan- 13, Germany- 12, Canada- 11, France- 10, Italy- 7, Ukraine- 6, Kazakhstan- 3, Saudi Arabia- 3, Belgium- 2, Bulgaria- 2, Israel- 2, Netherlands- 2, UAE- 2, UK- 2, Afghanistan- 1, Australia- 1, Austria- 1, Belarus- 1, Brazil- 1, Hungary- 1, India- 1, Malaysia- 1, Mexico- 1, Mongolia- 1, Poland- 1, Romania- 1 Slovakia- 1, South Africa- 1, South Korea- 1, Sweden- 1, Switzerland- 1, Syria- 1, Uzbekistan- 1, Vietnam- 1

Highest number of women in space at once: 4- October 2022 and April 2010

Highest number of space launches: 7- Franklin Chang-Diaz and Jerry Ross (tie)

Oldest person to go to space: John Glenn- 77 years old (also longest gap between spaceflights- 36 years)

Youngest person to go to space: Valentina Tereshkova- 26 years old