How many people have been to space before?

Most have been from America and Russia, but Europe, Canada, Japan and China have also sent people up to space.

The first Briton in space was a lady called Helen Sharman, who went to the Mir space station – a Russian Space station – in 1991.

Since then there have been some other people who were born in Briton who went into space but they moved to America and went up with NASA so they had American flags on their arms.

Tim Peake is our first government supported astronaut and will also be our first long duration astronaut.

He is going to go and stay on the International Space station for six months. He’ll launch at the end of November and then he’s going to live and work in space – keep an eye out on TV to track his progress!