Clipped wings: Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson may not be recognized as astronauts after space flight

Last week, Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos became a participant in the first passenger flight

flight of the New Shepard spacecraft into space, and in 9 daysBefore him, the 71-year-old founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, flew into space, only on his ship VSS Unity. It was expected that both would now be recognized as astronauts. But somehow it’s not like that.

What changed?

Also last week, the F.A.A.The FAA unexpectedly changed the rules for the commercial astronautics program. Simply put, the requirements have changed according to which a person is recognized as an astronaut and awarded “Astronaut Wings” - a special badge that appeared in the early 1960s.

So, to qualify for the title of commercialAstronaut, the candidate must still fly at an altitude of at least 80 km above the Earth. Both Bezos and Branson met this condition. The new rules state that the applicant must “demonstrate actions during flight that were necessary for public safety or contributed to the safety of human spaceflight.” Moreover, what exactly is considered such is determined by FAA officials. In addition, honor awards may be awarded on a merit basis at the discretion of the FAA Assistant Administrator.

In general, one thing is clear: now neither Jeff Bezos,nor Richard Branson may receive “astronaut wings.” Of course, after the flights they were given badges of honor resembling “wings”, but these were custom-made by their own companies.

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