Secretary of Transportation weighs in

That was basically how things stood till Thursday night, when the Secretary of the United States Department of Transportation, Sean Duffy, shared some ideas on the social networks website X.

“The last FAA guidelines under the Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program were clear: Crewmembers who travel into space must have ‘demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety,'” Duffy composed. “The crew who flew to space this week on an automated flight by Blue Origin were brave and glam, but you cannot identify as an astronaut. They do not meet the FAA astronaut criteria.”

There it was: The leading United States authorities on transport stating that Perry et. al. were not astronauts. This is a quite striking declaration.

For beginners the Federal Aviation Administration, a firm within the United States Department of Transportation Duffy leads, has formerly stated it will take no part in figuring out whether individuals who fly on suborbital flights are astronauts. The company makes this clear on its human spaceflight page, specifying: “The FAA no longer designates anyone as an ‘astronaut.’ In addition, the FAA does not define where space begins.”

To go back simply a bit, the FAA developed an industrial “Astronaut Wings” program back in 2004 to acknowledge the 2 pilots of SpaceShipOne, Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, who flew the car above 50 statute miles (80 km). After that time, the program acknowledged civilians who flew on Virgin Galactic’s Unity spacecraft, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and SpaceX’s orbital Crew Dragon car. You flew, and you got astronaut wings.

In December 2021, the firm stopped providing wings. “With the advent of the commercial space tourism era, starting in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration will now recognize individuals who reach space on its website instead of issuing Commercial Space Astronaut Wings,” the company stated. “Any individual who is on an FAA-licensed or permitted launch and reaches 50 statute miles above the surface of the Earth will be listed on the site.”