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Why Taikonaut ?
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- What is taikonaut?
Taikonaut is the Chinese counterpart for
astronaut and cosmonaut. If China become the third
country to send men into space using its own rocket and
spacecraft, what are they? Astronaut or cosmonaut? Both.
Neither. It is reasonable to create a new word to reflect
China's independent manned space capability, just like
those for American and Russian.
- How is it created?
"Taikong" is a Chinese word that means
space or cosmos. The resulted prefix "taiko-"
is similar to "astro-" and "cosmo-"
that makes three words perfectly symmetric, both in
meaning and in form. Removing "g" from
"taikong" is to make the word short and easy to
pronounce. On the other side, its pronounciation is also
close to "taikong ren", the Chinese words
"space men".
- Who use this word first?
In May 1998, Mr. Chiew Lee Yih ()
from Malaysia used it first in newsgroups. Almost at the
same time, I used it and announced it at this site. We
created this word in parallel, which shows it is probably
the best candidate for Chinese spacemen.
- Why do you renamed the site to "Go
Taikonauts!"?
The first reason is that the name "Dragon
in Space" is too normal, and looks too long as a
site name. "Go Taikonauts!" is short, special,
and exotic. The second reason is to promote the word
"taikonaut" :-) , which is actually the main
motive.
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