It's becoming little crowded in space. There is now record number of 19 people up in heavens. The record was broken after three-person crew on board Russian Soyuz capsule docked at International Space Station (ISS). On the recent mission were NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. They brought number of residents on the ISS to 12. Chinese astronauts are also part of record. They have three "taikonauts" working on Tiangong Space Station. The remaining four space travellers are part of SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission. That project saw historic first ever civilian spacewalk last Thursday.
There is point of contention regarding recent record. That is over definition of where outer space starts. NASA and U.S. military regard boundary separating Earth's atmosphere and outer space as being 80 km above sea level. With this interpretation, the record for humans in space is 20, set in May 2023 and tied in January of this year. However, conventional definition of the edge of space is called Karman Line. The International Aeronautical Federation puts this line at altitude of 100 km above sea level. The new record uses this definition. The Karman Line is used for legal purposes to differentiate between what constitutes aircraft and spacecraft.
