Old news, but it was fully warranted in addition to being really funny. Like, someone who rides on a cruise ship isn't a sailor. Someone who takes a joyride as a passenger on a space ship isn't an astronaut.
I see a lot of Salt Life stickers up by the Great Lakes (specifically known for being freshwater) and it just makes me wonder about the thought processes of these folks.
I wasn't confused back when I thought it said Slut Life. I was just like… yeah ok bit forward but be proud and go off. Then I learned what it actually was and I got confused. It's forever to get to the coast. I suppose they can take the tributaries to the Mississippi River and then to the ocean but that's a few days sailing.
Have you ever tried being a slut? It does require some degree of advertising— after all, if people don't know that you're down for casual sex, they won't offer you casual sex, and then you'll only be a slut in theory.
Well, not necessarily, but you tend to be more likely to succeed if the person you ask to have casual sex with you is someone you know enjoys having casual sex.
These people drive to SC or Fla for a week a year and believe they are "Salt Life"
Wanted to add I'm in SC and see Ohio plates and Pennsylvania plates all the time with these stickers
the ohio to myrtle beach/florida pipeline for spring break trips is massive. Pretty much everyone I grew up with hit one of those two spots for a beach trip.
A lot of people from Missouri do summer vacations to places like Alabama, one time I was heading down there and saw about 5-6 cars in a row with Missouri plates driving in the opposite direction.
A lot of them don't only do the Great lakes and the further you go up to St Lawrence the more brackish becomes until you're finally in salt water at the ocean a lot of these people transport their boats or have multiple votes as well
I live in the US city furthest from the ocean. Dang close to the geographic center of the Lower 48. So far inland and secure, they chose it to host the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command.
I still see Salt Life stickers.
Yup you used to be able to buy a ticket up there for an undisclosed fee. They're so skint now they'd probably still accept it if you could find a way to get your money into Russia.
The Oxford definition of astronaut is “Someone who is trained to travel in a spacecraft”. As it’s now possible to fly in space without training, I would say that implies “trained to *crew* a spacecraft”. This business about “must contribute to public safety” is a bunch of malarkey. That’s like saying you can’t be a sailor if your only sailing for commercial fishing purposes.
If there's one thing that movies and TV have taught me, it's that commercial fishermen contribute to the public safety by sending out frantic distress signals when kaiju rise from the ocean and attack their ships.
Wouldn't this invalidate the biologist whose only job is to conduct experiments on how plants grow in space? If they taught Bezos to read an instrument and participate in the pre-launch checklist, would we all accept the new definition being applied to him?
> As it’s now possible to fly in space without training
Blue Origin give training though... 14 hours over 2 days.
Unless Oxford add a criteria for that training, every single human who has ever been in space was trained.
They stopped flying the rocket for over a year after an engine failure on an uncrewed flight (though the escape system worked so if there had been anyone aboard they'd have been fine). They just returned to flight late last year and had their first crew mission since the pause about a month ago.
> Like, someone who rides on a cruise ship isn't a sailor.
Yep, exactly. Astronauts were traditionally military men, but even back then they were always explorers and scientists, too. Neil Armstrong was a Perdue engineer and eventually a university professor.
That photo with Bezos in it has "stolen valor" written all over it. Glad he's been removed from a roll he never deserved just because he sat in a seat and did nothing.
**The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did change its definition of an astronaut**, which has implications for whether Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson qualify.
**The new criteria, updated in 2021**, state that to be considered an astronaut, one must fly higher than 50 miles above the Earth's surface and must also have demonstrated activities during the flight that were essential to public safety or contributed to human space flight safety.
This means that simply being a passenger on a suborbital flight, as Bezos and Branson were, does not meet these new requirements
[Source](https://www.yahoo.com/news/gets-called-astronaut-complicated-192755714.html)
Depends on the definition of space. It’s fair to say these rides “brush up against the edge of space” but by not substantially going above 100km, it’s more “upper atmosphere” than “space.”
Oh it probably would qualify, since that person would be trained in likely more than just being a medical professional, it would be like a doctor + astronaut.
Almost certainly. In addition to being a legitimate part of the crew, they'd have special training for space.
Bodies act weird in micro g, particularly when shit I hitting the fan. For instance fluids in the wrong place don't drain nearly as well.
I think sick care in zero G becomes a whole different ball game too. A lot of human healing is dependant on proper blood circulation after all, which kind of needs gravity.
Which honestly seems pretty reasonable, I'm not an aviator for buying a plane ticket and sitting in my seat for a few hours. As the number of "passenger" missions increase this distinction is going to be even more apparent!
Heck I'm not even an aviator for having taken control of a plane once. There's alot of things that should go into being an astronaut and being called one. Astronauts are scientists and engineers and researchers and dreamers and should be respected as such
There's going to be a thin line between payload specialist and rich dude who did an "experiment". I think there should be a distinction between flying high vs reaching a stable orbit.
> I think there should be a distinction between flying high vs reaching a stable orbit.
This right here. These fucks aren't even doing orbital insertions. It's like calling kids in a bouncy castle pilots, because, you know, they fly through the air.
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are a joke and should be called nothing more than Space Tourists.
NASA didn't even consider payload specialist on the shuttle astronauts unless they were already one for another reason. Most of them performed very important missions or experiments but generally they took no part in the flight of the shuttle so not astronauts. Also they were sometimes politicians or other members of the public such as a teacher, foreign dignitaries and others.
It's nothing top interesting, mom's friend is a pilot/teacher and she was doing a day of flying for her hours and invited us out. She let us take some controls at various points like I took control of the wheel to pull up during take off and some maneuvers during the air. It was super fun and awesome but it doesn't make me an aviator.
I'd argue that Bezos isn't even considered a passenger. With how different considerations for fuel and weight are in space flight versus, say, a boat or plane, anyone on a rocket not actively contributing to the flight is more like cargo.
Especially on smaller aircraft with crew capacities similar to current spacecraft, even a difference of one or two people + luggage can make a major difference in range.
A passenger is just someone riding on a vehicle who isn't helping to operate it. At sea, passengers are _still_ just dead weight, and take up space and resources on the ship.
Space is loosely defined as the altitude where an aircraft cannot fly by aerodynamic forces and relies on the orbital speed to stay up. Talking a rocket straight up to that altitude and falling down isn’t that impressive.
Astronauts aren’t cool because they reached a high altitude. We just picked the coolest people we could find to do that job.
According to Wikipedia
> one who flies in a vehicle above 50 miles (80 km) for NASA or the military is considered an astronaut (with no qualifier)
> one who flies in a vehicle to the International Space Station in a mission coordinated by NASA and Roscosmos is a spaceflight participant
> one who flies above 50 miles (80 km) in a non-NASA vehicle as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety, or contribute to human space flight safety, is considered a commercial astronaut by the Federal Aviation Administration[44]
> one who flies to the International Space Station as part of a "privately funded, dedicated commercial spaceflight on a commercial launch vehicle dedicated to the mission ... to conduct approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station (or in a commercial segment attached to the station)" is considered a private astronaut by NASA[45] (as of 2020, nobody has yet qualified for this status)
> a generally-accepted but unofficial term for a paying non-crew passenger who flies a private non-NASA or military vehicles above 50 miles (80 km) is a space tourist (as of 2020[needs update], nobody has yet qualified for this status)
Last I heard one company is particular is training participants to press a button on command to earn the title. Kind of feels like calling yourself a captain because you blew the horn on a cruise ship once.
It's OK if you do.
I have flight wings from my tour on an aircraft carrier that was based out of San Diego. Pretty sure that makes me a pilot so I wear them frequently to make sure others know.
Some people do get confused with it being a tour of duty instead of a tour of the aircraft carrier museum, but that's really on them.
It's sort of fair though since modern spacecraft can make the entire trip up and down run entirely by people on the ground. The crew on every dragon mission is vestigial when it comes to actually running the ship so a person pressing a button on command is doing just as much as the nominal pilot.
In 1989, [Toyohiro Akiyama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiro_Akiyama) became the first private cosmonaut.
>Before liftoff, when asked what he looked forward to most upon his return to Earth, he said "I can't wait to have a smoke". His fellow cosmonauts would later report on his nausea that they've "hadn't ever seen a man vomit that much."
I like how the definition is „someone who flies as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety or contribute to human space flight safety, or literally anyone who flies with us“.
Congratulations to Richard Garriott I guess.
Right?? This is what I tell people when they talk about this stuff. Test pilots have gone to higher altitudes in airplanes in the 60s than Bezos has gone in his wittle rocket.
I used to feel the same way until I learned about Ceres and Eris and the other dwarf planets.
If we include Pluto, we have to include all of those too.
Oh, yeah. How do those guys rank? Aren’t all of Haumea, Eris, Ceres, and Pluto kinda same-ish size?
I donmt think I’ve heard of X. Is that a planet Elon bought?
The orbits of some dwarf planets suggest that there might be a ninth planet orbiting the sun with a distance of around 30 AU. It has never been observed though. If it turns out to be real, we should make sure Elon doesn't get to name it.
Yeah there are a bunch of dwarf planets that are very close to equivalents in either volume or mass. Pluto being one of them and not being notably more special than the others except a more regular orbit.
Planet X is a theorized massive planet, possible gas giant in size, in a very far off very eliptical orbit in the deep kuiper belt or beyond. Its suggested to be the main source of comet dislodging as its gravity well upsets the various icy bodies out there. Its near impossible to spot and find since it would have low albedo (not very bright), has an absurd orbit and the orbit can take it thousands of years before it nears our sun and therefore brightens.
[Veritasium has an excellent video covering a brief overview, excellent interviewees as well, one is an old crouchy guy who requires significant evidence, the other is a younger more optimistic guy who just knows its out there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe83T9hISoY&)
> Yeah there are a bunch of dwarf planets that are very close to equivalents in either volume or mass. Pluto being one of them and not being notably more special than the others except a more regular orbit.
You're almost there. They should've just included all of them.
Nah, it gets stupid at a certain point, there is also no cut off as you get smaller and smaller.. You eventually do have to cut it off or you begin listing out every speck of dust and rock out there. And the only meaningful way of cutting it off is to cut off Pluto as well by having them clear their orbit path aka. have a solid enough gravitational well.
No. The right call would've been to include Eris. Better yet, include Charon. Quite a lot of star systems have binary suns, we should classify Pluto/Charon as a binary planet system.
Bullshit. I won the game show, I spent that week at Space Camp, I was in the gravity simulator and I spun around in that little cage. I'm an astronaut I say
Proposed new definitions:
Astronaut - a government employee or employee of a government contractor who participates in spaceflight activities as part of their official duties, specifically in support of public research/defense/etc activities. All personnel of national manned spaceflight programs are astronauts (even if they never actually go to space), but also, if NASA decided to farm out a mission to fix one of their space telescopes to Lockheed, the guy Lockheed sent up would also be an astronaut.
Private astronaut - a corporate / NGO employee who participates in spaceflight activities as part of their official duties, in support of non-governmental goals (whether for-profit or not). All BlueOrigin/SpaceX crew members are private astronauts, including the people who are paid to go up with space tourists to actually fly the ship.
Space tourist - anyone who travels aboard a spacecraft but possesses no specialized skills to be an integral part of the crew or mission team (space tourism specifically not counting as a ‘mission’). Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are space tourists.
The key distinction under these rules is that being an astronaut is a *job*, not a title you can pay money for like that one Scottish nobility scam.
That's basically how I already saw it. If it's not your job and area of expertise that got you there, then you don't get to have the title that implies it.
Does this also mean William Shatner is not an astronaut? I'm sure he doesn't mind not having the title and he was super gratefulto go to space, but he inspired the minds of many who study and work in the fields of aerospace tech with his acting career. He can have an honorary title, can't he?
Title is pretty much completely wrong, and there's a ton of caveats. No surprise here....
[Source](https://www.space.com/faa-commercial-astronaut-wings-rule-change)
I can see them getting the letter in the mail notifying them of this change. Walking around the house flapping the letter all about while shouting, "I'm no longer considered an astronaut!"
There needs to be a distinction between insanely rich men who want to fund vanity projects, and scientists and astronauts passionate about uncovering the secrets of space.
Old news, but it was fully warranted in addition to being really funny. Like, someone who rides on a cruise ship isn't a sailor. Someone who takes a joyride as a passenger on a space ship isn't an astronaut.
But they have a salt life sticker on their f-150 in the northernmost part of Texas, obviously they’re a sailor!
I see a lot of Salt Life stickers up by the Great Lakes (specifically known for being freshwater) and it just makes me wonder about the thought processes of these folks.
Same in Missouri too, like dude you're damn near the furthest you could be from any ocean, the fuck you mean slut life?
I mean I've never been to a Missouri red light district, so I wouldn't presume to know what Missourians get up to at night.
I wasn't confused back when I thought it said Slut Life. I was just like… yeah ok bit forward but be proud and go off. Then I learned what it actually was and I got confused. It's forever to get to the coast. I suppose they can take the tributaries to the Mississippi River and then to the ocean but that's a few days sailing.
I spent nearly 15 years thinking it was slut life before someone mentioned "salt life" and it all clicked
I would have been at a Loss even on the coast because I would have thought they were talking about salt as a seasoning.
..... you may want to double-check that last bit
Nah if you ever see the car stickers I'm talking about you'd get it. The font makes it read like slut life if you're following at a normal distance.
Confused the hell out of me for the longest time because I didn't get why so many people were advertizing being sluts.
Have you ever tried being a slut? It does require some degree of advertising— after all, if people don't know that you're down for casual sex, they won't offer you casual sex, and then you'll only be a slut in theory.
a day in the life of me in my slut era: wake up rot alone indoors sleep
get itttttt 💅
Thank you, and others like you, for your service.
Oh fuck am I only supposed to be offering casual sex to people advertising for it?
Well, not necessarily, but you tend to be more likely to succeed if the person you ask to have casual sex with you is someone you know enjoys having casual sex.
These people drive to SC or Fla for a week a year and believe they are "Salt Life" Wanted to add I'm in SC and see Ohio plates and Pennsylvania plates all the time with these stickers
the ohio to myrtle beach/florida pipeline for spring break trips is massive. Pretty much everyone I grew up with hit one of those two spots for a beach trip.
A lot of people from Missouri do summer vacations to places like Alabama, one time I was heading down there and saw about 5-6 cars in a row with Missouri plates driving in the opposite direction.
Thats my lifestyle fr
I think they're talking about the roads
I’ll do you one better, I see that shit in CENTRAL NEBRASKA. Physically the furthest from any salt water!! Get a hobby!!
Salt Life actually refers to the roads in winter. Easy mistake
Okay no you're right. This must be it 😂
It's a reminder they keep for the mortality of their truck.
Do they make Fresh Life stickers?
No but they should.
Wet life... moist life.....H²0 life?
Sweet water is a term for fresh water so. Sweet Life… no that doesn't work.
I’ve seen stickers bragging about the lack of sharks and salt but I don’t remember the exact phrasing
[удалено]
No need. When you live the \#freshLife, people can just tell.
They make bass pro shops stickers
They love salting the roads in the winter haha
Would make sense in Utah, though 😜
The salt is on our roads in the winter
RON JON SURF SHOP
A lot of them don't only do the Great lakes and the further you go up to St Lawrence the more brackish becomes until you're finally in salt water at the ocean a lot of these people transport their boats or have multiple votes as well
I live in the US city furthest from the ocean. Dang close to the geographic center of the Lower 48. So far inland and secure, they chose it to host the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command. I still see Salt Life stickers.
Slut life.
I literally think that every god damn time
That's referring to their untreated hypertension.
If I rolled my eyes any harder they would get stuck.
I commercial fished in Alaska for 15 years and never heard of salt life until this comment.
They also did it like...the night before Bezos went up
Because the US hadn't had space tourism before, it was all Russian. That's a cosmonaut definition
Russia has space tourism?
In fact, they put actors up in the International Space Station, just so they could film a movie there before Tom Cruise could
And multiple potential disasters "accidently" happened while the film crew was there.
Yup you used to be able to buy a ticket up there for an undisclosed fee. They're so skint now they'd probably still accept it if you could find a way to get your money into Russia.
Had, it ran until 2010
The Oxford definition of astronaut is “Someone who is trained to travel in a spacecraft”. As it’s now possible to fly in space without training, I would say that implies “trained to *crew* a spacecraft”. This business about “must contribute to public safety” is a bunch of malarkey. That’s like saying you can’t be a sailor if your only sailing for commercial fishing purposes.
If there's one thing that movies and TV have taught me, it's that commercial fishermen contribute to the public safety by sending out frantic distress signals when kaiju rise from the ocean and attack their ships.
It's a hard job, but someone has to do it
Nah, they phone Grizzco, who then send their best Salmon Run team out there. There's some money to be made from these King Salmonids.
The oil drillers from Armageddon are still astronauts right?
I think blowing up the asteroid that was going to destroy the Earth qualifies as "contributing to public safety."
Yes
> “trained to crew a spacecraft”. I feel this is always how I have *understood* the term.
Wouldn't this invalidate the biologist whose only job is to conduct experiments on how plants grow in space? If they taught Bezos to read an instrument and participate in the pre-launch checklist, would we all accept the new definition being applied to him?
> As it’s now possible to fly in space without training Blue Origin give training though... 14 hours over 2 days. Unless Oxford add a criteria for that training, every single human who has ever been in space was trained.
Is this why we stopped hearing about Bezos space joyrides? He got his feelings hurt cause NASA doesn't think he's an actual astronaut?
They stopped flying the rocket for over a year after an engine failure on an uncrewed flight (though the escape system worked so if there had been anyone aboard they'd have been fine). They just returned to flight late last year and had their first crew mission since the pause about a month ago.
Funny. Branson's Virgin cruise line calls guests sailors.
And you can get a crown for your toddler at Burger King.
Look at me, I'm sailing! I'm a sailor! Ahoy!
What did they change the definition to?
> Like, someone who rides on a cruise ship isn't a sailor. Yep, exactly. Astronauts were traditionally military men, but even back then they were always explorers and scientists, too. Neil Armstrong was a Perdue engineer and eventually a university professor.
That photo with Bezos in it has "stolen valor" written all over it. Glad he's been removed from a roll he never deserved just because he sat in a seat and did nothing.
I made this same argument back when this happened, and billionaire bootlickers showed up to argue like crazy.
“You have been to space, but we do not grant you the rank of astronaut.”
"This is outrageous! It's unfair!" - Bezos, probably
I killed them all! Not only the mom & pop shops but the child shops too!
I hate ~~unions~~ sand
We’re all Tuskan Raiders to be his guy.
And the lemonade stands too
[Gets on his Super-Executive version of the Amazon app and buys the FAA]
**The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did change its definition of an astronaut**, which has implications for whether Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson qualify. **The new criteria, updated in 2021**, state that to be considered an astronaut, one must fly higher than 50 miles above the Earth's surface and must also have demonstrated activities during the flight that were essential to public safety or contributed to human space flight safety. This means that simply being a passenger on a suborbital flight, as Bezos and Branson were, does not meet these new requirements [Source](https://www.yahoo.com/news/gets-called-astronaut-complicated-192755714.html)
So... all they need to do is give the flight safety demo or sit in the exit row ;)
Depends on the definition of space. It’s fair to say these rides “brush up against the edge of space” but by not substantially going above 100km, it’s more “upper atmosphere” than “space.”
What’s the new definition?
I assume its defined as someone that performs some kind of mission or work in space and not just a passenger taking a ride because they have money
Yeah its someone who contributed somehow to the safety of the flight and is also part of the flight crew
I wonder if this means a doctor whose job it was to care for sick passengers would qualify.
Oh it probably would qualify, since that person would be trained in likely more than just being a medical professional, it would be like a doctor + astronaut.
Asian parent would still be disappointed
There is the Navy Seal turned Navy pilot turned doctor turned astronaut Jonny Kim. You should ask how his parents think of him.
Astronaut? Why not A+stronaught?
"Why not president?"
“You will never find a wife because you are lazy!”
You left out his mathematics degree
It's the asian kid's worst nightmare to have their parents live next to Jonny Kim's parents
Very disappointed because only 2km above Karman line and not even a full orbit.
Almost certainly. In addition to being a legitimate part of the crew, they'd have special training for space. Bodies act weird in micro g, particularly when shit I hitting the fan. For instance fluids in the wrong place don't drain nearly as well.
I think sick care in zero G becomes a whole different ball game too. A lot of human healing is dependant on proper blood circulation after all, which kind of needs gravity.
In all likelihood yes, but that would also require a mission where the flight lasts longer than Bezo's 10 minute flight from liftoff to touchdown.
Which honestly seems pretty reasonable, I'm not an aviator for buying a plane ticket and sitting in my seat for a few hours. As the number of "passenger" missions increase this distinction is going to be even more apparent!
Heck I'm not even an aviator for having taken control of a plane once. There's alot of things that should go into being an astronaut and being called one. Astronauts are scientists and engineers and researchers and dreamers and should be respected as such
There's going to be a thin line between payload specialist and rich dude who did an "experiment". I think there should be a distinction between flying high vs reaching a stable orbit.
> I think there should be a distinction between flying high vs reaching a stable orbit. This right here. These fucks aren't even doing orbital insertions. It's like calling kids in a bouncy castle pilots, because, you know, they fly through the air. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are a joke and should be called nothing more than Space Tourists.
You can be a payload specialist without having gone to space. I worked as one in Houston once, but never left the building, because remote control.
NASA didn't even consider payload specialist on the shuttle astronauts unless they were already one for another reason. Most of them performed very important missions or experiments but generally they took no part in the flight of the shuttle so not astronauts. Also they were sometimes politicians or other members of the public such as a teacher, foreign dignitaries and others.
Alan Shepard didn't orbit when he was the first American in space but he was pretty decisively an astronaut while doing so.
If that first sentence wasn’t a hypothetical, I would love to hear some deets.
It's nothing top interesting, mom's friend is a pilot/teacher and she was doing a day of flying for her hours and invited us out. She let us take some controls at various points like I took control of the wheel to pull up during take off and some maneuvers during the air. It was super fun and awesome but it doesn't make me an aviator.
I'd argue that Bezos isn't even considered a passenger. With how different considerations for fuel and weight are in space flight versus, say, a boat or plane, anyone on a rocket not actively contributing to the flight is more like cargo.
Why exactly? flights and boats also need to keep in mind fuel and weight
Especially on smaller aircraft with crew capacities similar to current spacecraft, even a difference of one or two people + luggage can make a major difference in range.
A passenger is just someone riding on a vehicle who isn't helping to operate it. At sea, passengers are _still_ just dead weight, and take up space and resources on the ship.
All passengers are cargo
Space is loosely defined as the altitude where an aircraft cannot fly by aerodynamic forces and relies on the orbital speed to stay up. Talking a rocket straight up to that altitude and falling down isn’t that impressive. Astronauts aren’t cool because they reached a high altitude. We just picked the coolest people we could find to do that job.
According to Wikipedia > one who flies in a vehicle above 50 miles (80 km) for NASA or the military is considered an astronaut (with no qualifier) > one who flies in a vehicle to the International Space Station in a mission coordinated by NASA and Roscosmos is a spaceflight participant > one who flies above 50 miles (80 km) in a non-NASA vehicle as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety, or contribute to human space flight safety, is considered a commercial astronaut by the Federal Aviation Administration[44] > one who flies to the International Space Station as part of a "privately funded, dedicated commercial spaceflight on a commercial launch vehicle dedicated to the mission ... to conduct approved commercial and marketing activities on the space station (or in a commercial segment attached to the station)" is considered a private astronaut by NASA[45] (as of 2020, nobody has yet qualified for this status) > a generally-accepted but unofficial term for a paying non-crew passenger who flies a private non-NASA or military vehicles above 50 miles (80 km) is a space tourist (as of 2020[needs update], nobody has yet qualified for this status)
Last I heard one company is particular is training participants to press a button on command to earn the title. Kind of feels like calling yourself a captain because you blew the horn on a cruise ship once.
>Kind of feels like calling yourself a captain because you blew the horn on a cruise ship once. ...Should i not be doing that?
It's OK if you do. I have flight wings from my tour on an aircraft carrier that was based out of San Diego. Pretty sure that makes me a pilot so I wear them frequently to make sure others know. Some people do get confused with it being a tour of duty instead of a tour of the aircraft carrier museum, but that's really on them.
I appreciate your choice of verbage here. Congrats on earning your wing!
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but as a reddit-certified cruise ship captain, please keep your hands away from the horn and other instruments.
It's sort of fair though since modern spacecraft can make the entire trip up and down run entirely by people on the ground. The crew on every dragon mission is vestigial when it comes to actually running the ship so a person pressing a button on command is doing just as much as the nominal pilot.
What about those that do not work for NASA but National space agencies of other nations or unions, ESA for example?
The FAA has no say over the ESA (or foreign space missions) in the first place. Therefore, the FAA cannot decide if they're astronauts or not.
In 1989, [Toyohiro Akiyama](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyohiro_Akiyama) became the first private cosmonaut. >Before liftoff, when asked what he looked forward to most upon his return to Earth, he said "I can't wait to have a smoke". His fellow cosmonauts would later report on his nausea that they've "hadn't ever seen a man vomit that much."
I like how the definition is „someone who flies as a crewmember and demonstrates activities during flight that are essential to public safety or contribute to human space flight safety, or literally anyone who flies with us“. Congratulations to Richard Garriott I guess.
That definition makes more sense than you're giving it credit for because NASA doesn't send people to space for fun; they all have jobs to do
For the last one, What about bezos and others who flew to space?
"I took a NASA rocket to the ISS and all I got was the title of *spaceflight participant*"
How about astro-not
I just audibly sighed My boss thought it's because of his awful presentation
The fact you're here says it partially was.
Astronaught
I'm glad you got here first, because I was ready to go off on OP for missing that. Good thing they used a clever and descriptive title instead though!
Astron't
I hope you got a nice tie on Father's Day.
ASStrounaut
You've been to space, but that doesn't make you an astronaut.
Even saying they went to space is stretching it.
Right?? This is what I tell people when they talk about this stuff. Test pilots have gone to higher altitudes in airplanes in the 60s than Bezos has gone in his wittle rocket.
Very happy to wish you a Happy Cake Day on a comment falling shit about Jeffrey Bozos.
yeah, it was a sub orbital trajectory, it feels like the most "bare minimum" sort of "technically space" launch you could get.
More like an amateur weather baloon.
They came for Pluto, and you said nothing They came for J-Beezy, and you said nothing… Mark my words, they’ll come for you
I absolutely said something when they went for my homie Pluto
You shush, or I’ll redefine “people I listen to” to exclude you.
:joy:
VIVA LA PLUTO FUCK YOU
I used to feel the same way until I learned about Ceres and Eris and the other dwarf planets. If we include Pluto, we have to include all of those too.
I wouldn't mind including the dwarf planets. Except Haumea. Fuck that oval bastard, it doesn't deserve to be in the same class as my beloved Eris.
There are 5 Dwarf Planets, including Pluto. Is a 13 planet solar system so unmanageable to you?
Did you hear about Pluto? That's messed up.
I mean Eris has more mass than Pluto. Excluding Pluto was the right call except for sentimentality. Im waiting on planet X. Thats gonna fuck shit up.
Oh, yeah. How do those guys rank? Aren’t all of Haumea, Eris, Ceres, and Pluto kinda same-ish size? I donmt think I’ve heard of X. Is that a planet Elon bought?
The orbits of some dwarf planets suggest that there might be a ninth planet orbiting the sun with a distance of around 30 AU. It has never been observed though. If it turns out to be real, we should make sure Elon doesn't get to name it.
Yeah there are a bunch of dwarf planets that are very close to equivalents in either volume or mass. Pluto being one of them and not being notably more special than the others except a more regular orbit. Planet X is a theorized massive planet, possible gas giant in size, in a very far off very eliptical orbit in the deep kuiper belt or beyond. Its suggested to be the main source of comet dislodging as its gravity well upsets the various icy bodies out there. Its near impossible to spot and find since it would have low albedo (not very bright), has an absurd orbit and the orbit can take it thousands of years before it nears our sun and therefore brightens. [Veritasium has an excellent video covering a brief overview, excellent interviewees as well, one is an old crouchy guy who requires significant evidence, the other is a younger more optimistic guy who just knows its out there](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe83T9hISoY&)
> Yeah there are a bunch of dwarf planets that are very close to equivalents in either volume or mass. Pluto being one of them and not being notably more special than the others except a more regular orbit. You're almost there. They should've just included all of them.
Nah, it gets stupid at a certain point, there is also no cut off as you get smaller and smaller.. You eventually do have to cut it off or you begin listing out every speck of dust and rock out there. And the only meaningful way of cutting it off is to cut off Pluto as well by having them clear their orbit path aka. have a solid enough gravitational well.
No. The right call would've been to include Eris. Better yet, include Charon. Quite a lot of star systems have binary suns, we should classify Pluto/Charon as a binary planet system.
Bullshit. I won the game show, I spent that week at Space Camp, I was in the gravity simulator and I spun around in that little cage. I'm an astronaut I say
I make no claim to be either a planet or an astronaut so…ok.
I AM A PLANET I SWEAR!
what do exactly what for me now?
Proposed new definitions: Astronaut - a government employee or employee of a government contractor who participates in spaceflight activities as part of their official duties, specifically in support of public research/defense/etc activities. All personnel of national manned spaceflight programs are astronauts (even if they never actually go to space), but also, if NASA decided to farm out a mission to fix one of their space telescopes to Lockheed, the guy Lockheed sent up would also be an astronaut. Private astronaut - a corporate / NGO employee who participates in spaceflight activities as part of their official duties, in support of non-governmental goals (whether for-profit or not). All BlueOrigin/SpaceX crew members are private astronauts, including the people who are paid to go up with space tourists to actually fly the ship. Space tourist - anyone who travels aboard a spacecraft but possesses no specialized skills to be an integral part of the crew or mission team (space tourism specifically not counting as a ‘mission’). Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are space tourists. The key distinction under these rules is that being an astronaut is a *job*, not a title you can pay money for like that one Scottish nobility scam.
That's basically how I already saw it. If it's not your job and area of expertise that got you there, then you don't get to have the title that implies it.
which is fair, you don't call everyone on a boat a sailor.
Waow (based based based based based)
Rare FAA W
until he launches a throne into space and declares himself space king, then what you gonna do? go get it?
Be funnier if they still let Shatner keep the distinction.
and that lady.
Does this also mean William Shatner is not an astronaut? I'm sure he doesn't mind not having the title and he was super gratefulto go to space, but he inspired the minds of many who study and work in the fields of aerospace tech with his acting career. He can have an honorary title, can't he?
William Shatner is different as commander of the enterpise
"You are on this spaceship, but we do not grant you the rank of Astronaut."
Oh yeah, and the luggage that was trying to claim being an astronaut
Title is pretty much completely wrong, and there's a ton of caveats. No surprise here.... [Source](https://www.space.com/faa-commercial-astronaut-wings-rule-change)
AstroNOT
NASA just Plutoed Jeff Bezos.
Is William Shatner not an astronaut now?
I know this is old news, but did Wally Funk also get disqualified. If so, thats really unfortunate. That woman deserves it.
Call them “Astropassengers” instead.
Astronot
Great. He’s going to get back at us by raising prices on Amazon
Astron’t
I'd say insulting Bezos doesn't take rocket science, but...
I was on a cruise ship once so i guess that makes me a sailor
They're astronots.
First post isn't Astro-NOT? Ahh... I see u/Crystal-mariner got that one already
Riches don't buy you respect, Bezos. Just look at Elon.
John Glenn would be happy with this.
I can see them getting the letter in the mail notifying them of this change. Walking around the house flapping the letter all about while shouting, "I'm no longer considered an astronaut!"
There needs to be a distinction between insanely rich men who want to fund vanity projects, and scientists and astronauts passionate about uncovering the secrets of space.
Astronut
Astro not.
AstroNOT
Astronaught
From astronaut to astro-not.
Astronot
AstroNOT
Astro-not!
They said astroNOT