You can buy your way up to space but may not get an astronaut pin
Are you an astronaut if you don’t have the pin to prove it?
This question — much like “What do we call non-NASA astronauts?” and “What’s the true boundary of space?” — is driven by a new era where more people can buy tickets into space.
And if you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for minutes of weightlessness with Virgin Galactic or many millions of dollars to orbit the Earth with SpaceX, you’ll probably want a pin to prove it.
“They want to be just like the people they’re hoping to become,” said Robert Pearlman, founder and editor of the space history news site collectspace.com. “They want to be an astronaut full fledge.”
Astronaut pins have a long tradition in human spaceflight. The military has a pin. NASA has a pin. The Federal Aviation Administration, which issues commercial launch licenses, has a pin.
It might seem like the FAA pin, part of the agency’s Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program, would go to anyone who rides in a commercial spacecraft. But that’s not necessarily true.
The FAA pin was created in 2004. It was around the time SpaceShipOne flew more than 62 miles above the Earth’s surface twice within two weeks, winning the $10 million Ansari XPRIZE that sought to make private space travel commercially viable.
SpaceShipOne pilots Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie received the FAA commercial astronaut wings. Since then, only five other people have received FAA wings — and they’ve all flown on SpaceShip Two, Virgin Galactic’s successor to SpaceShipOne.
Then this summer, on the same day billionaire Jeff Bezos flew to space, the FAA revised its eligibili
ty rules.
In addition to being a crew member onboard a vehicle that flies at least 50 miles above Earth, a person must now demonstrate activities during the flight that are “essential to public safety, or contributed to human spaceflight safety.”
The FAA has not yet announced if Bezos or Richard Branson, the founders of Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, respectively, will get commercial astronaut wings for their flights this summer. The other passengers on their flights, including female aerospace pioneer Wally Funk, also remain in limbo. But this “Will they? Won’t they?” narrative around the billionaires has driven much of the conversation around astronaut pins.
“(The pins) don’t establish you as an astronaut,” Pearlman said. “You’re an astronaut, by definition, when you cross into space. You are an astronaut by the nature of your altitude.”
Still, this bling has been awarded since Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly to space in 1961. He received a medal identifying him as a pilot cosmonaut of the USSR.
In the United States, the military developed wings for its service members who flew more than 50 miles above the surface of the Earth. The wings were different depending on the person’s branch of the military, but in the center was a star rising on a vector through a ring.
The first military wings were awarded in 1961 to Alan Shepard and Virgil “Gus” Grissom, NASA astronauts who took the first two suborbital spaceflights. Shepard was a Navy aviator and Grissom was an Air Force pilot.
In 1963, at the suggestion of original Mercury astronaut Walter “Wally” Schirra, NASA took the center of these wings — the star rising on a vector through a ring — and created its own astronaut pin.
For more than 50 years, a silver pin has been given to NASA astronauts once they complete their training, which takes about two years. They earn a gold pin (which today they must buy themselves) when they’ve flown into space, Pearlman said.
For commercial flights, both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have created their own pins to give passengers.
But whether these passengers will receive the FAA pin remains a mystery. A main sticking point is the term “crew member.” According to the current definition, a crew member must be an employee of the company conducting the launch. Those who purchase tickets to ride along on a mission would normally be considered “spaceflight participants” and would not qualify to receive the FAA pin.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has two pilots, but the back of the spaceplane can be filled with passengers.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon are autonomous spacecraft. Blue Origin advertises that its suborbital flight doesn’t require a pilot. And although SpaceX has a commander and pilot — they’re trained in case they need to take control of the vehicle — the Crew Dragon flies itself.
On the Inspiration4 mission that launched last month, SpaceX listed its four passengers as spaceflight participants in FAA documents. SpaceX gave these individuals a silver dragon pin after they returned from orbit in a Crew Dragon capsule.
“When the program was first created in 2004, its focus was to recognize flight crew members who furthered the FAA’s mission to promote the safety of vehicles designed to carry humans,” the FAA said in an email.
The change made earlier this year “aligns more directly to the FAA’s role to protect public safety during commercial space operations.”
George Nield, who was the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation from 2008 to 2018, said the wings were never meant to be handed out to everyone who flew on a mission. They were intended for crew members who had important duties operating the spacecraft.
He believes the FAA changed its eligibility requirements to more clearly differentiate between those who are controlling the spacecraft and those who are along for the ride.
Nield doesn’t think everyone who has flown with Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX ( specifically the Inspiration4 mission) will qualify for the FAA wings. Yet he said the FAA should consider awarding these individuals, who rode on first-of-their-kind flights, honorary commercial astronaut wings. These can be given to individuals whose contributions to commercial human spaceflight merit “special recognition.”
“It’s a very dynamic and evolving situation,” Nield said. “And it is fine to review where we are and what might have changed since the original definitions and to adjust them accordingly.”
There is one organization that will offer a pin to anyone who reaches space. The Webster-based Association of Space Explorers created a pin, called the Universal Astronaut Insignia, this year to unite all individuals who have gone into space. It has a pin for people who take quick suborbital missions and a pin for those who circle the globe.
“That was sort of the purpose,” Pearlman said, “to remove any question if you are an astronaut or not. Everyone would be acknowledged and registered.”