How many left handed astronauts have there been?

Question

One kind of 'popular science' fun facts that is very popular is to show how many of the individuals belonging to a notable group of people that are left handed, often showing a large disproportionally from the rest of the population. (example with Apollo astronauts, but that is a small sample size) This has been asked about presidents and Nobel prize winners etc., But are there any handedness skewing regarding astronauts too? This discussion suggest such a correlation.

As far as I can see, handedness may have a slight impact on the design of control panels and equipment with chiral properties, like scissors. (In the later case calling for a more neutral design in order to maintain uniform productivity.)

Buzz Aldrin, left handed

Do you count as astronaut any person who has been in space? Or do you exclude people like for example mission specialists? — user, Feb 17 '16 at 12:29
@MichaelKjörling "person who has been in space" makes most sense, but any statistics about a subcategory, like pilots would also be very interesting. (or left-handed people by nationality, gender, program or education by that matter). — SE - stop firing the good guys, Feb 17 '16 at 13:11
I would suggest we use the definition "person who has been in orbit", unless you want to count sub-orbital flights. — Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Feb 17 '16 at 16:03
@Rikki-Tikki-Tavi The definitions does not really matter, sub-orbital people are fine too, but feel free to exclude them. — SE - stop firing the good guys, Feb 17 '16 at 16:07
It's going to be hard to answer this as many left handed people were forced to be right handers by schools and social pressure. Now that the stigma has gone away we are seeing a higher proportion of lefties out there. — GdD, Feb 18 '16 at 09:07
@GdD The common 10% figure is perhaps too low for that reason. That may explain why a lot of studies find a higher proportion of left handed people when they study a group — SE - stop firing the good guys, Feb 18 '16 at 09:16
related: First left-handed primate on the Moon? First in space? and Are there examples of spaceflight equipment being redesigned to remove right hand bias? (To make it less difficult to use left-handed) — uhoh, Feb 02 '22 at 00:42
As an interesting tangent... I've had to be concerned about pilot "eye'd ness". When designing flight deck equipment and heads up displays design engineers need to understand/consider eye dominance and make equipment tolerant. — BradV, Feb 03 '22 at 02:20
Buzz Aldrin is not left-handed. I have seen numerous photos of him signing autographs or writing on a white-board, all with his right hand: Donn Eisele of Apollo 7 was left-handed. — Lois Huneycutt, Aug 13 '22 at 20:39

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered May 17 '19 at 11:53

It's hard to get a comprehensive statistic of all astronauts, but 1 in 4 of the early US astronauts (Mercury- Apollo) were left handed, including the following:

Buzz Aldrin
Dick Gordon
Charlie Duke
Jim Lovell
Wally Schirra
Ed Mitchell

I can't find a reliable statistic beyond the Apollo era, but I suspect that percentage has gone down. Also note that about 10% of the population is left handed, so the 25% of this era is unusual. From what I can tell, that percentage for more modern astronauts is higher than 10%, but lower than 25%.

How many left handed astronauts have there been?

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