FAA to discontinue program to issue wings to everyone who flies in space
The FAA has decided to end an on-again-off-again program, only started in 2005, that issue wings to everyone who makes their first flight into space on a private commercial spacecraft.
he Federal Aviation Administration will stop awarding commercial astronaut wings at the end of this year, five months after it revised the criteria for receiving the wings.
The FAA announced Dec. 10 that it will award wings to all non-government individuals that flew on FAA-licensed commercial vehicles to date in 2021, as well as those who fly on any remaining launches through the end of the year. However, it will not award wings to anyone, either crew members or spaceflight participants, that flies on FAA-licensed vehicles after this year.
The program was merely a public relations effort designed to give an honor to tourists and others who flew on non-governmental space missions. The FAA is now getting out of that business, leaving it to the commercial space companies themselves.
That part of the reasons is that the FAA was finding it difficult to come up with a good criteria for awarding the wings based on the increasing numbers of people now flying on private missions is actually wonderful. It means going into space is becoming more routine.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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The FAA has decided to end an on-again-off-again program, only started in 2005, that issue wings to everyone who makes their first flight into space on a private commercial spacecraft.
he Federal Aviation Administration will stop awarding commercial astronaut wings at the end of this year, five months after it revised the criteria for receiving the wings.
The FAA announced Dec. 10 that it will award wings to all non-government individuals that flew on FAA-licensed commercial vehicles to date in 2021, as well as those who fly on any remaining launches through the end of the year. However, it will not award wings to anyone, either crew members or spaceflight participants, that flies on FAA-licensed vehicles after this year.
The program was merely a public relations effort designed to give an honor to tourists and others who flew on non-governmental space missions. The FAA is now getting out of that business, leaving it to the commercial space companies themselves.
That part of the reasons is that the FAA was finding it difficult to come up with a good criteria for awarding the wings based on the increasing numbers of people now flying on private missions is actually wonderful. It means going into space is becoming more routine.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’ve made dozens if commercial airliner flights, I want my Jet Pilot wings!
Elon will be awarding official Martian antennae
Who cares what the FAA issues? There is an international organisation which issues all sorts of awards for aeronautical achievement, the FAI (Federation Aeronautique Internationale). I don’t know if they have a spaceflight division yet but I’d suggest they issue von Karman badges to those who have been above the line.
Next big step: When does it become routine enough that there will be a federal excise tax collected?
Airline tickets are taxed at 7.5% of ticket price, plus $5.60 each way, plus $4.20 per segment, if I have my numbers correct.
from July 2021.
(these people in Oregon, kill me)
https://blumenauer.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/blumenauer-announces-new-space-tax-proposal
“The Securing Protections Against Carbon Emissions (SPACE) Tax Act would create new excise taxes on commercial space flights carrying human passengers for purposes other than scientific research.”
“It would also include a two-tiered excise tax for each launch into space. The first tier would apply to suborbital flights exceeding 50 miles above the Earth’s surface but not exceeding 80 miles above the Earth’s surface. The second tier, which would levy a significantly higher excise tax, would apply for orbital flights exceeding 80 miles above the Earth’s surface. “
From the article:
So … the plan in 2004 was to award astronaut wings only to the first couple dozen passengers? To bring additional attention to this exciting endeavor? Rather than spacefarers wearing a pin proudly, for all to see, those who would have seen will have to look up a website, instead? Why doesn’t this sound as good? Why isn’t the FAA keeping a roster in tandem with delivering pinned wings? Why don’t they have such a roster already? In looking for their roster, I came up with first page search results that only listed articles on the discontinuation of FAA commercial astronaut wings, not a roster at the FAA:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=FAA+roster+of+astronauts&t=h_&ia=web
A search on the FAA site was also disappointing:
https://www.faa.gov/search/?q=Astronaut+roster&form_build_id=form-BveMb21BFj4p9MJL98fIqC57I588BOxSj5F4R6xbo5A&form_id=faa_attivio_search&op=Search
People watched the first two or three flights, one from Virgin Galactic, and two from Blue Origin, but how many watched the fourth flight, Blue Origin’s third? Isn’t the additional attention needed now that people are beginning to see this as routine as going to the Moon?
Oops. Going to the Moon was only “routine” half a century ago, and even then it was for the last four flights (those after the near loss of crew on Apollo 13), when the American news media stopped close coverage of them. The first four moonshots for Apollo were exciting, but Apollo 13 was considered routine until it deviated from a normal flight, so routine that the news media didn’t cover their inflight broadcast. After Apollo 13, moonshots were considered routine again.
Now that suborbital space shots are becoming routine, isn’t this the time that additional attention is needed for this exciting endeavor? Or does the FAA think that it is no longer exciting enough to award wings, except to special participants?
It used to be that an astronaut was a person who is trained to travel in a spacecraft. An astronaut didn’t even have to go to space to be an astronaut, but these days it is different.
NASA recently announced its latest ten astronauts, but since they have not flown in space, can we really call them astronauts?
So, the FAA now doesn’t consider even those who perform work duties (e.g. perform experiments) to be astronauts.
A problem with this statement is that Virgin Galactic may yet train and fly new pilot operators of SpaceShipTwo, who would still be deserving of wings under the new criteria.
However, there is one very important point that I think is overlooked by the FAA.
This early in manned spaceflight, safety is a relative term. We can be sure that there will still be lost lives on our spacecraft. So far, every manned spacecraft that has flown, manned, to space more than 12 times has killed at least one person. Sometimes this has taken more than 25 flights to do so, but the problem is that spaceflight is not yet as safe as air travel. Thus, each flight still presents us with data in how to improve the safety of spaceflight. Thus, each passenger by funding the flight and by participating in the flight (an activity) contributes to human space flight safety. These people are risking their lives in ways that airliner passengers do not, and that risk contributes to future spaceflight safety.
As with aircraft travel, it will take a lot of accidents and deaths for us to learn how to do it right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXbdJ3kyVyU (7 minutes, Bill Whittle: “The Deal”)
“We’ll know we are serious about [safety in] space travel when we have entire cemeteries full of dead astronauts who lost their lives showing us how to do it right, just like Gann’s generation did. Because that’s the deal. That’s what it costs. …
“Part of the Deal, you see, is that you pay in blood for progress. If there’s no progress, what’s the point?”
As a note: it was 2019 before another passenger died in a major U.S. airliner accident, and it was 2013 when a foreign airline accident killed three people, while landing in San Francisco. It could take many decades or centuries before spaceflight is as safe as major United States airliners are.