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From the bottom of my heart: who cares. Stop glorifying celebrities. I’m not going to disparage their earned wealth like is so popular right now, but they are billionaires and we shouldn’t be looking to them to solve all the world’s problems. So why should I, or anyone for the matter, care what these 2 do with their money. They’re playing with toys, let’s move along.
When their respective companies seriously contend with the likes of SpaceX, then maybe they can have some of my attention. But just like with SpaceX for me, I don’t give a shit about Elon, and no one should give a shit about Bezos and Branson. Congrats to them on their wealth, now let’s move on.
For good measure, maybe this post should just be replaced with the Wikipedia page for astronaut.
"Playing with toys" is a really dismissive way to describe the combined effort of 1000s of engineers and blue collar workers who innovated on a scale existing space companies haven't in decades to produce a service that will be utilized by millions in the near future for a fraction of the cost it once was.
I'm struggling to decide if I should say I care less about what Bezos & Branson do, or about what is "US definition of astronauts", or if I should point out that your comment is countering its purpose of "giving less attention" to what these guys do, or if me answering your comment would be countering the purpose of saying that, or maybe if I should just drop all of that and start talking about how I'm an astronaut, since Earth is in space and I am sometimes kinda demonstrating activities that are essential to public safety during our flight...
I guess I'm saying that both our comments are not very constructive and don't really affect anything. Maybe so is the "news", but it never has been different with the "news", people were talking about stuff like that long before steam engine was invented.
I don’t care about Branson, but SpaceShipTwo and its pilots are pretty neat.
As far as I know, SpaceShipOne and Two are the only vehicles that leave and reenter the atmosphere under manual control of the pilot since the X-15. the space shuttle had some manual control for landing, but was mostly autonomous otherwise.
The level of coverage these two got is deeply embarrassing. If I were a journalist I’d be ashamed for my colleagues fawning over some rich <bleep> buying a space ticket.
Good stuff, if you need someone to glorify look to ancient philosophers like the Buddha. Bezos starts and ends at his business choices/fortune. Musk has that plus some innovative/meaningful business ideas, but neither are worthy of following per-se. Study their business choices, not their lives. =)
Playing with toys that they're destroying our (shared!) environment with, presumably in the hope they can make wads of cash in the future, potentially from people fleeing an increasingly inhospitable earth. Pretty gross.
Wish I could upvote this a hundred times. People seem to be under a spell to look up to these billionaires who couldn't care less about them, and who is consistently abusing them.
> They’re playing with toys, let’s move along.
"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."
This is completely in line with how the FAA operates with respect to air travel.
They are involved in certification for pilots, crew, and aircraft, but rarely do anything involving passengers. And that's exactly what these wealthy thrill-seekers are -- passengers -- they just happen to be flying aboard a spacecraft. The FAA is not interested in receiving or dealing with a barrage of nominations for "astronaut wings" from hundreds of wealthy thrill-seeking passengers. And honestly, they shouldn't have to.
We don't expect to get FAA designated "aeronaut" wings for flying in an airliner. Why should this be any different?
If you really want a wings pin, I'm sure you'll be able to buy one at the gift shop on your way out.
This is a misleading headline that is implying way more controversy than actually exists. The headline should be “FAA updates commercial astronaut criteria.” This is a very reasonable update to a specific FAA program using industry-standard* language to describe crew, not a wholesale redefinition of the word “astronaut.” The FAA made no comment on Bezos or Branson. None of the people on either of the flights even applied for FAA wings. Nobody from the government came out and said “you aren’t astronauts.” They just see a shift in the industry and responded accordingly before it became a problem.
I know a lot of folks here love to hate the FAA because of Boeing, but to borrow a popular phrase from this site, the FAA is not one guy. Yes, there are problems in the aircraft certification division. But this is a different branch, and this move is totally reasonable.
*I’m in the industry.
Note the spaceshiptwo pilots already have commercial astronaut wings from earlier flights.
This seems very pretty to me. They obviously were not NASA astronauts anyway, I don't understand the point of adding extra clarification like this. Unless one of them had been trying to push for some kind of recognition, which I've seen no indication of, it just feels like some small and petty bureaucracy.
I can see it being a step to preserve a cultural status that someone feels belongs to a population, or that should point to a population and its representative government, more than an individual with lots of money.
Maybe an awkward step, but it does hit an interesting note in that way. Perhaps it's a move to point to a more appropriate way of reaching an ideal and also giving back to those who supported it. They do mention performing acts of benefit that seem to transcend just "going to space".
I'm inclined to agree. While I agree that that sight of these two billionaires patting themselves on the back is rather distasteful (with their own self-made astronaut wings to boot), this feels like someone at the FAA just wanted to slight them on a technicality. They want to exclude these two while also not wanting to have hard definitions like "need to orbit the planet" to not discredit Shephard.
This decision has nothing to do with NASA astronauts. It’s about certifying commercial crew astronauts. And no one on these flights had even applied for the commercial crew designation.
This sounds pretty petty to stop them being classed as astronauts because of demo'ing safety techniques or what not. It would be better if the qualification was to orbit the Earth (this planet) at least once.
It’s a perfectly sane definition — not everybody aboard a boat is a sailor, not everybody aboard a plane is a pilot. Their definition is “astronaut is a title reserved for the crew, not the passenger”
Alan Shepard's first flight wasn't orbital, yet everybody agrees it made him an astronaut.
Wikipedia says they're a space tourist. It used to say spaceflight participant.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos (/ˈbeɪzoʊs/ BAY-zohss; né Jorgensen; born January 12, 1964) is an American business magnate, media proprietor, investor, and space tourist. [0]
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor, author, and space tourist. [1]
Honestly, just being a passenger is not the exact same thing as an astronaut. Although the timing of this definition seems a bit suspect.
Well said! I would imagine if I have to manufacture my own wings — like Southwest does for children — that’s the dead giveaway this ain’t the real thing.
What makes the FAA think they have exclusive domain to define the word astronaut?
...the agency says would-be astronauts must have also "demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety".
What exactly counts as such is determined by FAA officials.
This definition is selective and stupid. I agree a single, suborbital stunt flight doesn't make the cut in my personal vernacular. But if someone e.g. serves as a science officer on a flight or simply spends three months on the ISS doing nothing more than shooting professional photos I would call them an astronaut.
Christa McAuliffe didn't make it past launch but Wikipedia calls her an astronaut and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who wants to refute that.
The FAA decides who gets an astronaut pin from the US government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Astronaut_Badge
You can call yourself one, if you like. They just won’t recognize it.
This seems like a step by the FAA towards a new kind of airman certification as space travel becomes more accessible.
It's probably fair to call anyone who was ever airborne in a Wright brother's craft an airplane pilot, but I'm not one if I fly Delta today.
next it'll be sandra bullock and george clooney aren't astronauts
Who cares about whats these (b)(m)illionaires do with their "space" toys?
Virgin galactic would have been interesting 17 years ago right after scaled composites actually won the Ansari X Prize and put a human in "space". 17 years later and multiple spaceX failures and successes later? Much more underwhelming.
Back in 2001 Denis Tito paid 20mil to spend 10 days at the ISS. That is a milestone. Not that Bezos spent 10min in "space" in 2021.
Good. They were “passengers” much like someone sitting on a jet is not a “pilot”.
Not to diminish what their companies are doing - I believe there’s real value from getting people excited about going up and a better way of life for the people of the future.
But they are not astronauts and that’s ok. I would like to go to space too but I will never be an astronaut.
I realize that Bezos and Brandon are only astronauts because they are wealthy.
At the same time, any NASA astronaut is only an astronaut because a well-funded system choose them. Its not like any of these people figured out how to take a plane and get it to space with cool flying technique.
If anything, Bezos and Branson did more personally than anyone else to get to space since they spearheaded these projects from the start.
People are calling this petty, but it seems like a correct and necessary distinction as private spaceflight becomes more popular and attainable.
Doesn't this mean that, other than the pilots, everyone who got a ride on a shuttle wouldn't get their wings?
Seems fair, tourist cargo doesn't rise to the level of "astronaut". It should take more than a huge pile of money to put a person in those ranks.
I'm pretty sure they both just wanted to go to space.
Who cares. They'll be flying in space and soon being an astronaut will be as ordinary as going on an airplane.
Just as sitting in a passenger's seat for couple fast laps does not make you a race driver.
This is one of those items where all there really is to say is refer to an xkcd.
People can define space any way they like, but I think "going to" space should require going at least 90% of the way around the world.
Which has the side effect of implying you've spent over an hour "in" space.
"Yes, that button, push it now".
Bezos and Branson get too much of the coverage. I don't want to read another word about billionaires. I'd prefer to read about the space stuff.
I must be a bus driver or a pilot...
maybe Space Cowboy & Knighted Ryder ?
Does this deserve to be #1 on HN?
People are focusing on the pettiness and timing but the US government had very good reasons to do this (and other countries should follow suit):
1) The increasing commercialization of spaceflight provides many opportunities for unscrupulous grifters seeking to con scientifically illiterate millionaires, potentially at great risk to human life. Governments really should clamp down on who is and isn’t qualified to call themselves an astronaut.
2) As someone who supports companies like SpaceX being involved in space exploration: it is extremely gross for the focus to the on the personal feelings and childish fantasies of three billionaires, one of whom is notorious for blatantly abusing his employees, the other notorious for blatantly lying to his customers[1]. Branson seems by comparison to be an ok person... but he’s not an astronaut, and it’s disrespectful to real astronauts to suggest otherwise.
[1] While Bezos at least seems to acknowledge that he bought his ticket, the fact that Elon Musk still calls himself “Chief Engineer” at SpaceX is an embarrassment, and a slap in the face to all the engineers who actually show up to do work at SpaceX.
> The wings spotted on Mr Bezos and Sir Richard following their flights were custom-made pins by their own companies.
Ouch. The BBC will not be getting 100M from Bezos, with this (not really) ad hominem content :D
From the press coverage, you'd think the only reason Bezos and Branson did this was to impress reporters.
Reporters tend to think awfully highly of themselves, even more so than your average billionaire does.
And yet , Bezos and Branson are the object of this article, while the nameless beurocrat who decided to put out a press release to specify that the 2 men are not astronauts....well he's just a nameless beurocrat, who is not mentioned and in fact, the subject is a generic "US" instead.
Relevant : http://www.paulgraham.com/fh.html
I mean, who cares what their definition is? Considering the planets issues right now is there meaningful outcomes from this other than billionaires show off?
Could we make new internationally recognised titles like “world hero” or “better than 10 novel peace prize winners”. Billionaires could compete to eliminate debt in a poorer country or reduce carbon by 10 parts per million and win it? Would that stroke their ego enough to part with cash to tackle meaningful problems their companies are currently heavily contributing to?
We all promise to tell them all the time how great they are for having parted with small percentage of their incomprehensible wealth.