FAA: No More Astronaut Wings For Future Commercial Space Tourists (yahoo.com) 44
"The Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that it was ending a program that awarded small gold pins called 'Commercial Space Astronaut Wings' to certain people who flew to space on private spacecraft," reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.)
But before the program officially retires in January, all who applied for the gold wings after flying to space this year will still receive them, the agency said.
That means Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon who rode a rocket with his space company, Blue Origin, to the edge of space in July, will be considered a commercial astronaut. So will Richard Branson, the founder of the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic who flew his own company's rocket plane to space in the same month. William Shatner, the Star Trek star who flew with Blue Origin to the edge of space in October, will also receive astronaut wings to go with his Starfleet paraphernalia. Twelve other people were also added to the federal agency's list of wing recipients on Friday [bringing the list up to 30 people].
The changes will help the F.A.A. avoid the potentially awkward position of proclaiming that some space tourists are only passengers, not astronauts.
The Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program was created by Patti Grace Smith, the first chief of the F.A.A.'s commercial space office, to promote the private development of human spaceflight — a mandate from a 1984 law that aimed to accelerate innovation of space vehicles. The program began handing out pins to qualified individuals in 2004, when Mike Melvill, a test pilot who flew the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne plane, became its first recipient. To qualify for the commercial astronaut wings under the original guidelines, a person had to reach an altitude of at least 50 miles, the marker of space recognized by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, and be a member of the spacecraft's "flight crew..."
Although no one will receive the little gold pins after 2021, those who fly above 50 miles on an F.A.A.-licensed rocket will be honored in the agency's online database.
But future space tourists should not despair a lack of post-flight flair. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX have each presented paying and guest passengers with custom-designed wings.
Or, as the Associated Press put it, "The FAA said Friday it's clipping its astronaut wings because too many people are now launching into space and it's getting out of the astronaut designation business entirely...." "The U.S. commercial human spaceflight industry has come a long way from conducting test flights to launching paying customers into space," the FAA's associate administrator Wayne Monteith said in a statement. "Now it's time to offer recognition to a larger group of adventurers daring to go to space."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.
That means Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon who rode a rocket with his space company, Blue Origin, to the edge of space in July, will be considered a commercial astronaut. So will Richard Branson, the founder of the space tourism firm Virgin Galactic who flew his own company's rocket plane to space in the same month. William Shatner, the Star Trek star who flew with Blue Origin to the edge of space in October, will also receive astronaut wings to go with his Starfleet paraphernalia. Twelve other people were also added to the federal agency's list of wing recipients on Friday [bringing the list up to 30 people].
The changes will help the F.A.A. avoid the potentially awkward position of proclaiming that some space tourists are only passengers, not astronauts.
The Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program was created by Patti Grace Smith, the first chief of the F.A.A.'s commercial space office, to promote the private development of human spaceflight — a mandate from a 1984 law that aimed to accelerate innovation of space vehicles. The program began handing out pins to qualified individuals in 2004, when Mike Melvill, a test pilot who flew the Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne plane, became its first recipient. To qualify for the commercial astronaut wings under the original guidelines, a person had to reach an altitude of at least 50 miles, the marker of space recognized by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, and be a member of the spacecraft's "flight crew..."
Although no one will receive the little gold pins after 2021, those who fly above 50 miles on an F.A.A.-licensed rocket will be honored in the agency's online database.
But future space tourists should not despair a lack of post-flight flair. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX have each presented paying and guest passengers with custom-designed wings.
Or, as the Associated Press put it, "The FAA said Friday it's clipping its astronaut wings because too many people are now launching into space and it's getting out of the astronaut designation business entirely...." "The U.S. commercial human spaceflight industry has come a long way from conducting test flights to launching paying customers into space," the FAA's associate administrator Wayne Monteith said in a statement. "Now it's time to offer recognition to a larger group of adventurers daring to go to space."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.
If you can afford to buy the ticket (Score:3, Funny)
Sold by Amazon.com (Score:5, Funny)
If you can afford to buy the ticket. Then you can afford to have somebody make a copy of the "golden" wings if want them.
Ships from Amazon.com
Sold by Amazon.com
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If you can afford to buy the ticket. Then you can afford to have somebody make a copy of the "golden" wings if want them.
Ships from Amazon.com
Sold by Amazon.com
Probably made in China ... :-)
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If you can afford to buy the ticket. Then you can afford to have somebody make a copy of the "golden" wings if want them.
Ships from Amazon.com Sold by Amazon.com
Probably made in China ... :-)
So, highly polished brass not gold. :-)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you can afford to buy the ticket. Then you can afford to have somebody make a copy of the "golden" wings if want them.
Ships from Amazon.com Sold by Amazon.com
Probably made in China ... :-)
So, highly polished brass not gold. :-)
Plastic with gold paint, both containing lead.
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Fingerpainted on by child slaves waiting for someone to need an organ.
Or a piano.
Wow (Score:3)
This is silly - If future people crossing the Kaman line aren't astronauts as once defined defined, no one who ever got their wings before should have them.
It's a matter of changing the definition because people are pissed off at Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson for being rich.
I wonder though, what the Spacex cult will think if Ol Muskie takes a Kaman line hop.
Re: Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe the FAA shouldn't be in the business of passing out trophies to people.
Nothing keeps some private entity from making such awards.
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Or maybe the FAA shouldn't be in the business of passing out trophies to people.
Nothing keeps some private entity from making such awards.
Right - all of those X-15 pilots need stripped of their fake medals, because they by today's definition are not astronauts, and do not deserve those fake astronaut wings If people who go that height are not astronauts today, the people who went that high in day's past were not astronauts either,
Note I really do not care. I just think that people having arguments about this stuff might be better served discussing if God can make a burrito too hot for himself.
So I troll.
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It isn't about being an astronaut, it's about being in an elite club.
It's no different than high school kids transitioning from Von Dutch to Affliction.
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It isn't about being an astronaut, it's about being in an elite club.
It's no different than high school kids transitioning from Von Dutch to Affliction.
People who can afford to be space tourists seem like a pretty elite club.
This isn't about being part of an elite club as much as it is earning honours. The people who became astronauts underwent a extremely competitive career path, a path where more lucrative options were probably always available.
I don't doubt that they have some resentment towards the idea that people would simply be able to buy that honour.
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It isn't about being an astronaut, it's about being in an elite club.
It's no different than high school kids transitioning from Von Dutch to Affliction.
People who can afford to be space tourists seem like a pretty elite club.
This isn't about being part of an elite club as much as it is earning honours. The people who became astronauts underwent a extremely competitive career path, a path where more lucrative options were probably always available.
I don't doubt that they have some resentment towards the idea that people would simply be able to buy that honour.
One of the reasons we have been trying to commercialize space is that other people than the original astronauts, who endured exceptional physical training can go. Because as it turns out, you don't need to be a young and virtually perfect specimen of humanity to ride to space and back. To do work outside the ship requires being in good shape still. But lets not forget that they just sent a man in his 90's on a suborbital hop. We're reaching the point where ordinary schmedlocks can expect to make it back an
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I don't doubt that they have some resentment towards the idea that people would simply be able to buy that honour.
I don't think there should be any resentment. Being an astronaut was always about being a pioneer and an explorer. Where pioneers and explorers go, others will follow. That is the whole point to exploration. If private companies turn low-earth orbit into a tourist attraction, then professional astronauts will just have to just go to other places and I think it's a net positive for everybody. Incidentally, as a young man, I earned my wings, flew fast fighter jets and dreamed about being an astronaut. It didn
Question (Score:4, Funny)
does that mean Christa McAuliffe was not an astronaut on Challenger?
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Only affects passengers, McAuliffe was crew (Score:2)
does that mean Christa McAuliffe was not an astronaut on Challenger?
No, it means that Wally Funk is the last recipient. She's probably the only reason for justifying giving the gold to "tourists".
Note that Christa McAuliffe was a crew member, not a passenger. This change is to prevent passengers from claiming astronaut wings.
Re: Question (Score:3)
She was debris.
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does that mean Christa McAuliffe was not an astronaut on Challenger?
She was selected (on merit) from a pool of 11,000 applicants and underwent a year of training which included her duties as a member of the crew [wikipedia.org].
I don't know if she was as much an astronaut as the rest of the crew, but there's certainly a huge gulf between her and the space tourists.
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No longer necessary, Wally Funk got her gold wings (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It won't last... (Score:2)
But future space tourists should not despair a lack of post-flight flair. Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX have each presented paying and guest passengers with custom-designed wings.
It won't last. Even just 40-years ago airlines used to have roomy seats, free (and decent) meals and hand out plastic models of the plane to kids who flew. Today you count yourself lucky if you get the seat you paid for even if sitting in it means you lose all circulation below your knee.
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That's just because airline bosses have lost all circulation above the neck.
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When I was a child (1970s) flying cross country on TWA, they gave us little chromed/painted plastic pin-on double wings as souvenier/toys. They looked a bit like the ones the pilots had on their uniforms.
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You might have a blinkered view of aviation 40 years ago...
40 years ago, airline deregulation had only just occurred in the US, meaning that ticket prices, fuel prices and things like seating were, until tightly controlled by the US administration - ticket prices were much higher than they are today, fuel prices significantly lower (and subsidised), routes tightly controlled for competition etc, which meant that yes you could indeed get a large seat and free stuff.
Today, costs such as fuel, maintenance and
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If deregulation hadn't happened, you almost certainly wouldn't be flying anyway because you couldn't afford it.
The problem is that now, while I can afford it I don't want to fly if at all possible because the experience is so awful: not enough regulation is just as bad as too much.
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Great Milestone (Score:1)
It's an important milestone in the expansion of space travel that some people at last are just considered passengers, just happening to reach a destination in or by way of travel beyond our atmosphere (or nearly out of it).
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As it stands Bezos and friends used their money to get to space and then FAA takes back the recognition before the people who actually footed the bill can go and have the same acknowledgement.
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"It is quickly becoming a vanity accomplishment."
Sure for people buying tickets now. How does it become a vanity accomplishment for the people who fronted the money in hopes of making it possible?
"Spending your life's savings on it doesn't ma
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Passengers are passengers (Score:1)
If you're some rich asshole / celebrity whose paid seat could be filled by a sack of potatoes for all the difference it would make and/or there is no mission then you should not get a medal. Nor should words like astronaut or cosmonaut be conferred on you.
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If you're some rich asshole / celebrity whose paid seat could be filled by a sack of potatoes for all the difference it would make and/or there is no mission then you should not get a medal.
"I spent $250,000 on a 10-minute giant penis ride and all I got was this lousy puke stained t-shirt." -- Some rich asshole
Have dirferent pins (Score:2)
Bezos (Score:2)
That means Mr. Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon who rode a rocket with his space company, Blue Origin, to the edge of space in July, will be considered a commercial astronaut.
Not a space cadet?
Of course. Toursists are just payload, (Score:3)
Would you give Astronaut wings to a case of tuna going to the ISS?
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Would you give Astronaut wings to a case of tuna going to the ISS?
None of those guys are astronauts. Simply passengers. IMHO they should have kept the program for actual astronauts. Part of a crew. Someone that does an actual and not a made up job.
So what? (Score:2)
Also, no more golden pasties for porn stars. Who cares? Why is this news, much less on /.?
And thus was created... (Score:2)
a very small pool of eventually very rare and expensive collectibles...
On a more serious note:
This is a good thing - it signifies the moment when the government accepted that a human activity that was once reserved for a handful of extremely elite people, then available to a slightly larger pool of hyper-wealthy, is eventually going to be about as special and rare as a trip on an airliner. We're clearly not there yet, but it's a marker that the government has accepted that as the not-too-distant future, and
The Difference Between a Pilot and a Passenger... (Score:1)
One person is a skilled professional; the other is one who places their trust in the professional to get from A to B.
They shouldn't have ever given those PASSENGERS, 'astronaut,' wings to begin with. Just because I fly American Airlines from one destination to another and enjoy some airplane peanuts in the economy section, doesn't mean I'm a fucking airplane pilot. God damn.
A commercial astronaut is people like the pilots of Richard Branso