Cowboy Bebop: Who Is The Cosmonaut? Faye Valentine Reference Explained

Who is the cosmonaut in Cowboy Bebop? Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the Cowboy Bebop anime had been highly anticipated given how popular the original show was — and became over time. For many people, Cowboy Bebop acted as a gateway into the anime genre, and for Netflix, that’s almost what the live-action adaptation means for their future. Next up, the streaming service has a live-action Gundam movie and Avatar: The Last Airbender series in the works — and Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop could inform fans of what to expect.

The thing is, while much of Cowboy Bebop resembles the anime series, including specific shots being recreated almost exactly, there’s a lot of deviation as well. A good deal of that revolves around the main crew of the Bebop — Spike, Jet Black, and Faye Valentine — including aspects of their interactions. When Faye officially joins up with Spike and Jet, the latter two compare her to someone called the Cosmonaut. There isn’t a character from the anime who’s referred to by that name nor is there anyone in show who’s revealed to be the Cosmonaut.

Interestingly, the person the Cosmonaut reference is referring to is likely Valentina Tereshkova, a person whose name and helmet is found on the woolong coin (the in-universe currency for Cowboy Bebop). In real life, Tereshkova was the first woman to fly in space, and because she’s Russian and was trained by the Soviet Union, she is a cosmonaut versus an astronaut. Furthermore, at a young age, she looked remotely like Daniela Pineda’s Faye Valentine and even shared a similar hairstyle.

Cowboy Bebop‘s entire world revolves around space travel, so there’s a sense of symbolism in the reference, though it’s certainly a deep cut. Perhaps in this franchise, Tereshkova is highly regarded for helping further space travel and, therefore, warranted immortalization on the solar system’s official currency. As for why Spike and Jet so easily recognize the cosmonaut and Faye doesn’t, the two logical reasons are that her amnesia prevents her from remembering and they cherish the woos much more than she does.

In many ways, Tereshkova became a symbol of Russian pioneering and space exploration. And now that Faye Valentine is attempting to uncover the mysteries of her past, perhaps she’ll one day learn just what it means to be compared to the Cosmonaut. If not, then Cowboy Bebop has a rather profound Easter egg that may keep coming back in future seasons, should the show continue. Comedy shows and movies tend to add these elements into their stories to build intrigue, and that’s precisely what Cowboy Bebop does — quite admirably, too.

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Mansoor Mithaiwala
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Mansoor Mithaiwala is Screen Rant’s TV Lead Editor. He originally joined the site as a freelance writer on the Lists team before moving over to News and Features, eventually becoming an editor in 2018. Over time he’s done quite a few different things, including helping launch gaming on the site, often handling news, features, and guides simultaneously. Now he sticks primarily to movies and TV, and spends way too much time looking at analytics. It sure seems like he’s put his Political Science degree to good use, huh?

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