has demonstrated to me that I was quite ignorant about astronauts/space travel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22579023

1) I imagined there were loads of British people in space all the time. If I'd had to estimate, I'd have thought each of the big G8-type countries had about...30?
2) I thought astronauts went into space for like 20-30 years, not a few months
3) I thought the International Space Station was just the American one, like how they call their national baseball thing the World Series.

Have I been misled by sci-fi films? I'm very confused.

So, use this threads to talk about astronauts/space stuff OR about things you've only recently discovered you've been completely wrong about.