Posts: 179
From: WV, USA
Registered: Sep 2006

Posts: 51172
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-08-2023 05:36 PM               

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The title "astronaut" generally is applied to two different categories of people:

1. Individuals whose full-time career it is to fly into space (typically as an employee with NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency).

2. Individuals who have flown above a defined altitude depending on the regulating agency. For example, in the U.S., military pilots can achieve astronaut status by flying above 50 miles.

Christa McAuliffe and Greg Jarvis were payload specialists. They were not career astronauts, so they do not belong to the first group.

Tragically, Challenger broke apart before reaching any of the defined altitudes for astronaut status, and so neither McAuliffe or Jarvis qualify in that sense.

There is no entity giving out the honorary status of astronaut.

That said, I think most of the public thinks of any one who boards a space shuttle or rocket as an astronaut, so while it may not be an earned or formal title, I believe McAuliffe and Jarvis are remembered as such regardless.

Posts: 456
From: Pacific NW, United States
Registered: May 2012

Posts: 51172
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-08-2023 08:09 PM               

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I don't understand the need to gate keep or put down others to raise up those we like. If McAuliffe and Jarvis deserve astronaut status because they died aboard a vehicle heading to space, then Michael Alsbury, who died doing the same aboard SpaceShipTwo, is just as worthy.

The Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic customers are earning their status the same way every payload specialist who has entered space has done so — by a factor of altitude.

Posts: 1320
From: CA.
Registered: Jan 2011