United States Astronaut Badge United States Astronaut Badge The United States Astronaut Badge is a badge of the United States, awarded to military pilots, naval flight officers, navigators/combat systems officers (this badge can also be awarded to USAF officer astronauts who are not navigators/CSOs, but who wear the same insignia while designated as astronaut-qualified Air Force "observers"), flight surgeons, and civilian pilots who have completed training and performed a successful spaceflight. A variation of the astronaut badge is also issued to civilians who are employed with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as specialists on spaceflight missions. It is the least awarded qualification badge
Chinese as a foreign language China. After this period, only Cantonese and Mandarin remained as the most influential variants of Chinese, the former due to the importance of maritime trade in Guangzhou and the emergence of Hong Kong as a key economy in East Asia. Chinese departments in the West were largely centered on Cantonese due to British colonial rule over Hong Kong until the opening of communist-ruled China starting in the 1970s. The teaching of Chinese as a foreign language in the People's Republic of China started in 1950 at Tsinghua University, initially serving students from Eastern Europe. Starting with Bulgaria in 1952, China