Trump official to Katy Perry and Bezos’ fiancée: “You cannot identify as an astronaut”

I'm of the opinion that we should strongly encourage all these rich assholes to go to space, making it the hot new trend, requiring larger and larger spacecraft to handle the demand.
Then one day, one will explode in space, killing a hundred Sociopathic Oligarchs at once.
And I'll laugh and laugh...

Real astronauts take months to train, and don’t scream like idiots.

Wait so i'm not a pilot because i was in an airplane once?
- This is not that at all.
  The FAA no longer calls people "astronauts", and the FAA director just took a dig at Katy Perry on X.

This is dumb semantics. You can say they didn't pilot the spacecraft, but neither did Shepard or Gagarin. You can say they were civilians, passengers, and meant for publicity. So Christa McAuliffe isn't an astronaut now I guess.
The problem with cock-pollo 11 is not that vacuous celebrities and billionaire girlfriends get a title they don't "deserve". It's that billionaire cunts can burn down the world and call it feminist at the same time they support a regime that actively takes rights from women.
- Yeah, my only takeaway from this is that we really should bring back dueling so Musk and Bezos could settle their dispute in a way that might actually make the world a slightly better place
  
  Muskrat will just chicken out like he did the wrestling match with Zuck.

The simplest way of looking at it is this. If you are being paid to go, as part of your job, you are an astronaut. If you are paying to go you are a space tourist.

According to this administration, the correct term is 'cosmonaut'.

While I'm disgusted by this whole pr stunt by Katy Petty, an astronaut is literally just a person trained to travel in a spacecraft beyond the earths atmosphere. pr Merriam Webster. So is she an astronaut? Assuming the spacecraft actually left the earths atmosphere, then yes. She can identify herself as an astronaut. Doesn't make her anywhere near as cool an astronaut as the people who work and do research in space, but that's not necessarily part of the definition.
- Yeah, there was no training, they aren't trained to go into space. I don't see how astronaut could possibly be an appropriate title. They're payload mass in a sounding rocket.
- No. They weren't "trained to travel in a spacecraft". It was fully automated. They were just passengers on an 11 minute flight.
  Seriously, if that makes them astronauts...then everyone who's been on an airplane, is a pilot.
  
  Yuri Gagarin's flight was entirely automated. He went a bit higher and made a full orbit, but I'm pretty sure everyone agrees he's an astronaut.
  
  "If my Grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike" --Gino D'Acampo
  
  The first 'astronauts' were "spam in a can." Yuri Garagin didn't have any controls in his craft, nor did the first few American astronauts. An 'astronaut' is anyone who has gone more than 60 miles up. And yes, if you have been in an airplane you can call yourself a 'flier.'
  
  Did they travel in a spacecraft, and did they recieve the necessary training to do so?
  Not all astronauts pilot the spacecraft, and most going to eg. the ISS don't actually do anything while going to the station. That trip is also just an automated flight, controlled by the onboard computer.
  It's more akin to, "if that makes them astronauts, then people who have traveled on an airplane, has recieved the training to travel in an airplane."
- I've recently listened to a podcast with the german astronaut Matthias Maurer where he discusses this question - What exactly makes you an astronaut?
  He stated that there are several definitions, mostly based around altitude but if you want the European Space Agency to call you an astronaut you also have to fly around the earth in space at least once. So by ESA definition, Katy Perry would not be an astronaut.
  
  I've now seen 3 completely contradictory definitions of what an astronaut it. 1 by ESA, 1 by the FAA, and 1 by a dictionary. Clearly no one actually knows what an astronaut is exactly, and what the exact minimum requirements are for an astronaut to be called an astronaut. What everyone seem to at least agree on is that part of what makes an astronaut, is in some capacity to visit space.
- "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."
  Edit: I don't really care if Bezos, Shatner, Perry and Billionaire sidepiece can't call themselves astronauts. Why would anyone want that for them? I don't even think Shatner has called himself that.
  
  If someone from the Trump administration says the sky is blue you should look outside to confirm
  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."
  Sanchez, Perry, and the others are recognized on this site today.
  
  I've now seen 3 completely contradictory definitions of what an astronaut it. 1 by ESA, 1 by the FAA, and 1 by a dictionary. Clearly no one actually knows what an astronaut is exactly, and what the exact minimum requirements are for an astronaut to be called an astronaut. What everyone seem to at least agree on is that part of what makes an astronaut, is in some capacity to visit space.

I still say Pluto is an astronaut.

Space tourist more apt perhaps.

Well yeah. Essentially she was a passenger not crew. Would you call yourself a sailor if you took a ride on a ferry?

Is there a term for thinking you ate the onion but it was actually real?

I'm sure people in first class on an airplane consider themselves pilots.

PSA: There was at least one person who deserves recognition on that flight. She paused her space career to fight for women's rights.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Nguyen
An American social entrepreneur, civil rights activist, and bioastronautics researcher. She is the founder and chief executive officer of Rise, a non-governmental civil rights organization. Nguyen drafted the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, a bill that passed unanimously through the United States Congress. Nguyen has also been credited with kickstarting the movement to stop violence against Asian Americans after her video calling for media coverage went viral on February 5, 2021.