Secretary of Transportation weighs in

That was just about how issues stood till Thursday night, when the Secretary of the US Division of Transportation, Sean Duffy, shared some ideas on the social media site X.

“The final FAA pointers underneath the Industrial Area Astronaut Wings Program had been clear: Crewmembers who journey into area should have ‘demonstrated actions throughout flight that had been important to public security, or contributed to human area flight security,'” Duffy wrote. “The crew who flew to area this week on an automatic flight by Blue Origin had been courageous and glam, however you can’t establish as an astronaut. They don’t meet the FAA astronaut standards.”

So there it was: The main US official on transportation declaring that Perry et. al. weren’t astronauts. This can be a fairly hanging assertion.

For starters the Federal Aviation Administration, an company throughout the US Division of Transportation Duffy leads, has beforehand mentioned it’ll take no half in figuring out whether or not individuals who fly on suborbital flights are astronauts. The company makes this clear on its human spaceflight page, stating: “The FAA now not designates anybody as an ‘astronaut.’ As well as, the FAA doesn’t outline the place area begins.”

To step again just a bit bit, the FAA created a business “Astronaut Wings” program again in 2004 to acknowledge the 2 pilots of SpaceShipOne, Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, who flew the automobile above 50 statute miles (80 km). After that point, this system acknowledged personal residents who flew on Virgin Galactic’s Unity spacecraft, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and SpaceX’s orbital Crew Dragon automobile. You flew, and you bought astronaut wings.

Then, in December 2021, the company stopped issuing wings. “With the arrival of the business area tourism period, beginning in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration will now acknowledge people who attain area on its web site as an alternative of issuing Industrial Area Astronaut Wings,” the company mentioned. “Any particular person who’s on an FAA-licensed or permitted launch and reaches 50 statute miles above the floor of the Earth can be listed on the location.”