With Richard Branson’s launch yesterday and Jeff Bezos’ coming up later this month, I’ve seen much discussion of whether they are astronauts. Some scoff at suborbital flights, but the scoffing ignores the fact that Alan Shepard’s Mercury flight was suborbital–albeit in excess of 100 miles. Others point to the altitude required for the Federal Aviation Administration to award astronaut wings, which is 50 statute miles. Neither the Outer Space Treaty nor the Rescue and Return Agreement define the term. What are the criteria? Altitude alone? Being a pilot? That can’t be when we call NASA’s non-pilot mission specialists astronauts. Can the law help us with this question? Of course, it can!
No opinion. First, I am not offering any opinion on whether either of the gentlemen launching this month qualify as astronauts. For one thing, I am not in possession of relevant facts, such as whether they are employees of the launch operator and whether they satisfied the FAA’s crew qualification and training requirements. These are details we need in order to answer the question for individuals. As a matter of law, the FAA’s governing statute and its own regulations do not address plain ol’ astronauts. As a matter of what appears to be promotional policy, the FAA awards astronaut wings of no legal effect. But, oh, the glory.
Legal Criteria. When Congress clarified 51 USC ch. 509 (popularly referred to as the Commercial Space Launch Act), it told the FAA there are legally three types of people on board FAA licensed launches: crew, space flight participants, and government astronauts. According to the legal definitions, a person may only be one of these .
Crew. Chapter 509 and the FAA’s regulations implementing it define “crew” as an employee or independent contractor of an FAA-licensed launch operator, where the employee performs activities in the course of that employment directly relating to the launch, reentry, or other operation of or in a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle that carries human beings.
Space flight participant. Congress and therefore the FAA define this person as “an individual, who is not crew or a government astronaut, carried within a launch vehicle or reentry vehicle.”
Government astronaut. For a person to be a government astronaut, he or she must satisfy a multitude of criteria. A government astronaut must be designated as such by NASA. He must be on board the FAA-licensed launch or reentry vehicle in the course of his employment, “which may include performance of activities directly relating to the launch, reentry, or other operation of the launch vehicle or reentry vehicle.” Note that this person’s duties might not include operating the vehicle. Lastly, to be a government astronaut this person must be a federal employee, engaged in a federal function, or an international partner astronaut.
(Before passage of the new definition of “government astronaut” in 2015, NASA personnel on board an FAA licensed launch were space flight participants under the law. They didn’t work for the launch operator and so couldn’t be called crew. That unfortunate nomenclature has since been remedied.)
Promoting the industry. So, legally, if you’re on an FAA-licensed launch and don’t work for the government, it’s hard to be called an astronaut. However, some of you can still get your astronaut wings. This is because the FAA, in a fit of good cheer and whimsy and in reliance on its statutory promotional authority, first awarded astronaut wings to SpaceShipOne’s pilot when Scaled Composites won the Ansari X Prize back in 2004. As far as I can tell, these wings come with no privileges or responsibilities, and the criteria are not codified in regulations. Even so, the FAA has non-legal criteria and states them as follows.
To be eligible for Astronaut Wings, nominees have to meet the following criteria and submit an application to the FAA:
Whether anyone famous–or even anyone you know–qualifies as an astronaut will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Another good exercise for the reader would be to wonder whether the FAA has identified where outer space starts.
Delightful as usual. However, re:your closing, the First Rule of Space Club is we don’t talk about where space starts.
I know. I know. That’s why I giggled mischievously when I wrote that last line.
In my defense, the FAA did it first.
Well now, whether you are recognized as an astronaut really depends on who you are talking with. As you point out, the USAF and FAA have picked 50 miles (264,000 ft). So if we go by the FAA and Air Force definition, Branson, the crew and fellow spaceflight participants, are astronauts as they reached a little over 280,000 ft on Sunday’s flight. However, if you talked to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) Astronautics Record Commission (ICARE) – don’t ask me how they arrived at that acronym, and I’m the US delegate to the commission! – they would say otherwise. The FAI uses the Karman Line or 100 km (330,000 ft) as the definition for the beginning of space, so Branson and crew would not qualify. In fact, if someone wanted to set a record under section 8 of the FAI sporting code governing Spaceflight activities Virgin Galactic’s Unity spacecraft would not qualify because it did not reach 100 km. There is a lengthy discussion online about the merits of the Karmen Line which touches on things such as atmospheric density, ability to sustain lift and the ability to actually orbit the earth that give some credence to the 100 km number. But I’m sure the view from 50 miles is pretty spectacular!
The definition of astronaut doesn’t have to be tied to altitude, but in ordinary usage it tends to be. The Ansari XPrize, if I recall correctly, set an altitude of 100 km as one criterion for winning the prize.
There is definitely room for differing interpretations. I had always been under the impression that the U.S. government was loathe to identify the starting point for outer space, so having these different perspectives is all to the good.
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