Billionaire astronauts may have wings clipped
They spent billions of dollars and two decades in their quest to get to space. But it was back to Earth with a bump for Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson as it turned out they may not officially qualify to become astronauts.
On the day Bezos blasted off, the US Government quietly tightened its rules, meaning the billionaires could miss out on the rare award of commercial astronaut wings.
Bezos, 57, the richest man on Earth, started his Blue Origin space company in 2000, and has been spending up to US$1 billion a year to fulfil his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. Branson’s space odyssey with Virgin Galactic began back in 2004.
Previously, under the US Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Astronaut Wings Programme, practically the sole requirement to being considered an astronaut was to travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80km).
On July 11, Branson soared to 53 miles on his rocket plane. Nine days later Bezos blasted his way up to 66 miles on his New Shepard rocket.
But while Bezos was somewhere over the Texas desert, the FAA was busy revising its rules.
It inserted a new clause saying that would-be astronauts must also perform “activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety”.
An FAA spokesman said it had decided to “change the focus” of the rules to “align more directly to the FAA’s role to protect public safety during commercial space operations”.
There was no clarification from the FAA on whether the timing of the change was specifically related to Bezos’s flight.
The Amazon founder’s 10-minute trip to space was fully automated. He and three others — his brother Mark, 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen, and Wally Funk, 82, a veteran aviator — were passengers.
To qualify for commercial astronaut wings, fliers also have to be an employee of the space company, which ruled out all of them apart from Bezos himself.
It also appeared to mean that future paying customers of any space tourism company would not receive astronaut wings from the FAA.
In Branson’s case the implications of the rule change were far less clear. He flew before the change was made and the FAA order instituting it said the “effective date” was July 20, 2021.
Branson was also designated as a member of the crew, rather than a passenger. He was a “mission specialist” tasked with “evaluating the Virgin Galactic astronaut experience”, which could mean he still qualified.
Before obtaining FAA astronaut wings a person has to be nominated, and a spokesman said it had no nominations under consideration.
The new rules did allow for “honorary” awards of astronaut wings to people who “demonstrated an extraordinary contribution to the commercial human space flight industry”.
An honorary award would be at the discretion of Wayne Monteith, the FAA’s associate administrator for commercial space transportation.
Space historian Robert Pearlman said: “There is going to be a segment of the population that’s waiting in line to ride because they have dreamt of being an astronaut their entire lives. And to be told they’re not an astronaut would ruin the experience for them.”
Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic have each made their own astronaut pins for people who complete their flights.
Neither of the companies commented. —