An End to the Billionaire ‘Astronaut’

By  //  July 28, 2021

When you’ve got too much money and nothing else to do with it, what’s the next logical step? Going to space is seemingly the answer from the current goings-on with Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson.

It’s certainly no easy feat, and both have had the infrastructure there to do so with the likes of Blue Origin being an already established name in space travel. But it seems the hopes of those looking to become a billionaire astronaut have quickly been dashed, as a reclarification of the term ‘Astronaut’ means both current hopefuls, and any future goals may be dashed. 

There are currently 2,755 billionaires in the world, ranging from the huge tech moguls to recent names holding all of their value in online assets like cryptocurrency which has recently found a surge in pricing with mainstream successes like sites found at thebestcasinos.co.uk – that’s a lot of people that could label themselves as an astronaut and get themselves into space, but the new clarification could mean that only those who are part of the flight crew and make contributions to space flight safety may be able to claim the title, at least in the eyes of the US. 

Ultimately, it’s an arbitrary change and will do little to dull the experience of those who’ll be looking forward to trying space flight, and with Virgin Galactic’s hope to deliver commercial flights to space in the near future, which may also mean that those who buy the tickets to get to space may not be able to consider themselves astronauts either. It may simply come down to whether or not receiving the title of astronaut is all that important, or if it’s just something to put down on the resume as an achievement. 

There could be some hope, a nod that an honorary award may be given based on merit and with the two making a lot of effort to make space flight cheaper and more attainable too and so could certainly fit into the selection of people that can be considered an astronaut, but it is something that has continued to flare up some drama.

It has also raised questions around the complicated nature of receiving the title too, the review process for getting your ‘wings’, and the exclusivity of it all – there hasn’t really been any comment from astronauts that have come before or the big space agencies around their view, and it doesn’t take away from the achievements that have come before just because money had been involved, especially when it is the money and the big investments pushing commercialised space travel forward, and making everything seen today in regards to space travel much more accessible too.