I don't know that you would call that person an astronaut. A Canadian astronaut and three NASA veterans, including one of the world's most experienced female spacewalkers, will. Maybe it's a manager of an orbiting hotel. NASA announces crew for first trip back to the moon in over 50 years 02:03. In years to come, people might go up to space not for science but just as a requirement to do their job. 'Anybody who flies in space, whatever their capacity, is a space traveler. Andrew Morgan were both selected for the astronaut program in 2013, and. 'I like the term space traveler,' Chaikin said. Anne McClain, detachment commander, and Col. In that same way, the word 'astronaut,' along with all the responsibilities and significance it connotes, may eventually go out of usage, according to him. 'If you go on vacation and get on a balloon ride today, nobody is going to call you an aeronaut.' Duke, now 87, told Ars he was excited to meet with the. 'The people who flew balloons from the 18th century into the 19th century were called aeronauts, which sounds so archaic to us now,' Chaikin said. NASA hasn’t trained a crew to fly to the Moon since Apollo 17 at the end of 1972, the last time astronauts walked on the lunar surface. 'I don't think the wider world pays that much attention to whether or not the FAA awards astronaut wings to one person over another.'Īnd it may be that as suborbital and orbital spaceflights happen with more regularity, and as access to space significantly expands in the future, the language and labels around such operations could change dramatically, he said. 'I think the motivation for space tourism is that people just want to have that experience,' he said. Despite the FAA tightening its definition of who qualifies as a commercial astronaut, space historian and author Andrew Chaikin doesn't think it will dampen enthusiasm for the burgeoning industry. Artemis 2 is an eight day mission that will send three NASA astronauts and one Canadian Space Agency astronaut around the moon on a free-return trajectory. She and the other women were ultimately denied entry because females were not accepted into NASA's astronaut class until 1978.Īs space tourism ramps up, one big draw is the idea that ordinary civilians - albeit wealthy individuals who can foot the hefty price tag of a ticket to space - could call themselves astronauts. The FAA can award honorary astronaut wings to “individuals whose contribution to commercial human space flight merits special recognition.”įunk was one of the Mercury 13 women who underwent training in the 1960s to demonstrate that women could qualify for NASA’s astronaut corps.

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