Among several factors involved in the development of a manned space mission concept, the astronauts' health is a major concern that needs to be considered carefully. Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), which mainly consist of high‐energetic nuclei ranging from hydrogen to iron and beyond, pose a major radiation health risk in long‐term space missions. It is therefore required to assess the radiation exposure of astronauts in order to estimate their radiation risks. This can be done either by performing direct measurements or by making computer based simulations from which the dose can be derived. A necessary prerequisite for an accurate estimation of the exposure using simulations is a reliable description of the GCR spectra. The aim of this work is to compare GCR models and to test their applicability for the exposure assessment of astronauts. To achieve this, commonly used models capable of describing both light and heavy GCR particle spectra were evaluated by investigating the model spectra for various particles over several decades. The updated Badhwar‐O'Neill model published in the year 2010, CREME2009 which uses the International Standard model for GCR, CREME96 and the Burger‐Usoskin model were examined. Hydrogen, helium, oxygen and iron nuclei spectra calculated by the different models are compared with measurements from various high‐altitude balloon and space‐borne experiments. During certain epochs in the last decade, there are large discrepancies between the GCR energy spectra described by the models and the measurements. All the models exhibit weaknesses in describing the increased GCR flux that was observed in 2009–2010.