Commercial astronaut

• 1. Introduction

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  Mike Melvill became the first commercial astronaut on the 21st of June 2004. He had piloted SpaceShipOne above 100 kilometers and returned with a certificate the world had never seen. The Federal Aviation Administration had just created a new class of space traveler. This person was not a government employee or a military officer, but the flight crew of a privately owned spacecraft. Before Melvill's flight, every professional sent to space had been sponsored and trained exclusively by a government. The designation the FAA invented raised a question that has grown harder to answer ever since: who exactly qualifies? The threshold differs depending on whether you ask the FAA, the U.S. military, or NASA. It also differs depending on whether the person flying is a hired crew member or a paying passenger. The FAA eventually retired the wings program that made the designation official. Outside the United States, no criteria for commercial astronaut status have been made public.

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• 2. A Disputed Threshold

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  The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale defines spaceflight as any flight over 100 kilometers in altitude. The United States draws its line below that international standard. American professional, military, and commercial astronauts all qualify at a lower altitude. Within the United States itself, the FAA, the U.S. military, and NASA each define the astronaut designation differently. None of those definitions fits cleanly with how companies like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic operate.

  By July 2021, that mismatch had become impossible to ignore. Both Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin's New Shepard flew their first suborbital passenger flights that month. Under the existing FAA rules, participants on one company's flight might qualify for commercial astronaut wings while participants on the other's might not. Blue Origin chose to award their own version of astronaut wings to the four people who flew on their first passenger flight. Whether those wings included the official FAA designation remained unclear, as SpaceNews reported at the time. People flying as passengers on ground-controlled or autonomously operated spacecraft fell into a separate category entirely. They were designated as spaceflight participants, not crew members.

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• 3. The Legal Foundation

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  The Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 established the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation. That legislation required companies to obtain launch licenses for their vehicles. Crewed commercial spaceflight and the licensing of crew members were not part of the original picture. In February 2005, the FAA issued draft guidelines for vehicle and crew certifications. Even then, the agency never issued formal regulatory guidance for an official Commercial Astronaut Certificate.

  As an interim measure, the FAA established the practice of awarding Commercial Astronaut Wings to qualifying pilots. To receive them, crew members had to meet the requirements of 14 CFR Part 460. They had to demonstrate flight beyond 50 statute miles above Earth's surface on an FAA-licensed or permitted mission. They also had to show that their activities during flight contributed to human spaceflight safety or served the broader public safety mission. Part 460 pointed toward an instrument rating and a second-class medical certificate as minimum standards. Both had to be issued within the 12 months prior to the qualifying flight. The wings that resulted became the FAA's interim standard for recognizing human spaceflight achievement in the commercial sector for nearly two decades.

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• 4. Wings by Design

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  A green globe sat at the center of the first set of FAA Commercial Astronaut Wings. It rested on a blue background, with the three-pronged astronaut symbol superimposed on top. Yellow block text circling the globe spelled out "Commercial Space Transportation" in capital letters. An outer gold ring bore the words "Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration" in black. When the next set of wings was issued for flights beginning in 2018, the emblem had been simplified. The new version showed the astronaut symbol surrounded only by the words "Commercial Space Transportation," all rendered in gold on a black background.

  In December 2021, the FAA reconsidered the program as commercial spaceflight had grown substantially. The agency ended it in January 2022. The FAA committed to maintaining a list of individuals who had flown to an altitude of 50 miles or higher. As of July 2022, that list held 45 names. Only 30 of those 45 had received the official Commercial Space Astronaut Wings before the program closed. Beth Moses held two titles at Virgin Galactic: Chief Astronaut Instructor and Interiors Program Manager. She was among the first passengers to fly on a commercial spacecraft and the first woman to do so.

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• 5. A Roster of Records

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  Wally Funk, a member of the Mercury 13, flew aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard on the 20th of July 2021. She reached an altitude of 107 kilometers. On that same NS-16 flight, Oliver Daemen became the youngest person to have flown in space. Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, and his brother Mark Bezos were also aboard. Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, had reached 86 kilometers on the 11th of July 2021. He flew aboard Unity 22, nine days before the Blue Origin mission.

  The SpaceX Inspiration4 mission began on the 16th of September 2021, with Jared Isaacman, the chief executive of Shift4 Payments, in command. That crew reached 585 kilometers, the highest altitude logged by any commercial astronaut mission on the FAA list. Sian Proctor piloted the spacecraft. She became the first female commercial astronaut to pilot a spacecraft. She was also the first African-American woman to pilot a spacecraft and the first African-American artist to reach space. Hayley Arceneaux, also on Inspiration4, was the first astronaut to fly with a prosthesis.

  William Shatner, an actor, flew aboard New Shepard on the 13th of October 2021. He earned recognition as the oldest person to have flown in space. Laura Shepard Churchley flew on the 11th of December 2021 on the mission designated NS-19. Her father was Alan Shepard, the first U.S. astronaut. Cameron Bess and Lane Bess flew on the same NS-19 mission, making theirs the first parent-child spaceflight on record.

  David Mackay, who reached 90 kilometers on the 22nd of February 2019, was the first person born in Scotland to enter space. CJ Sturckow had previously earned NASA wings through mission STS-88. His commercial astronaut wings came from a Virgin Galactic flight, making him the first person to hold credentials from both programs. Michael Alsbury received honorary commercial astronaut wings posthumously. Peter Siebold received honorary wings for the same flight, designated PF04. Brian Binnie, the second entry on the original FAA list, flew SpaceShipOne to 112 kilometers. It was the highest altitude recorded for that vehicle, and a starting point from which the category would eventually reach orbit.

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