Hacker News Reader

From where are you getting this data?

Probably from http://open-notify.org/ , it provides free space data.

Open Notify has an API for this and some other space data.

Here's a few more APIs I've collected into a small R package:

I dont think OP is the person behind the website. The website has been in existence for many years now.

Also, I don know what the source is

I believe the website maintainer follows the news and manually updates http://www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com/peopleinspace... as necessary.