astronautte
nounEtymology Blend of astronaut + -ette (feminine suffix).
- In 1960 Jerrie Cobb was the first woman chosen (from a dozen tested) to qualify for NASA's new astronaut program. Newspapers called her an "astronautte," and "America's answer to the Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova."1993, Blanche Linden-Ward, American women in the 1960s: changing the future, page 153:
- Administrators also argued that hundreds of women would have to be more rigorously tested to determine if women were capable of sustaining sustaining spaceflight. In response, the press rallied in support of the FLATS, dubbing them astronauttes, astronettes, and astronautrixes.1999, Anne Commire, Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia: