Secretary of Transportation weighs in

That was pretty much how things stood until Thursday evening, when the Secretary of the US Department of Transportation, Sean Duffy, shared some thoughts on the social media site X.

“The last FAA guidelines under the Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program were clear: Crewmembers who travel into space must have ‘demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety,'” Duffy wrote. “The crew who flew to space this week on an automated flight by Blue Origin were brave and glam, but you cannot identify as an astronaut. They do not meet the FAA astronaut criteria.”

So there it was: The leading US official on transportation declaring that Perry et. al. were not astronauts. This is a pretty striking statement.

For starters the Federal Aviation Administration, an agency within the US Department of Transportation Duffy leads, has previously said it will take no part in determining whether people who fly on suborbital flights are astronauts. The agency makes this clear on its human spaceflight page, stating: “The FAA no longer designates anyone as an ‘astronaut.’ In addition, the FAA does not define where space begins.”

To step back just a little bit, the FAA created a commercial “Astronaut Wings” program back in 2004 to recognize the two pilots of SpaceShipOne, Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie, who flew the vehicle above 50 statute miles (80 km). After that time, the program recognized private citizens who flew on Virgin Galactic’s Unity spacecraft, Blue Origin’s New Shepard, and SpaceX’s orbital Crew Dragon vehicle. You flew, and you got astronaut wings.

Then, in December 2021, the agency stopped issuing wings. “With the advent of the commercial space tourism era, starting in 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration will now recognize individuals who reach space on its website instead of issuing Commercial Space Astronaut Wings,” the agency said. “Any individual who is on an FAA-licensed or permitted launch and reaches 50 statute miles above the surface of the Earth will be listed on the site.”