The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has caved to the demands of Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and will grant both men Commercial Space Astronaut Wings despite previously stripping the billionaires of the astronaut title.
Interesting Engineering reports that the FAA has agreed to grant billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson the Commerical Space Astronaut Wings for their journeys into space.
(INSET: Blue Origin rocket) Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos addresses the audience during a keynote session at the Amazon Re:MARS conference on robotics and artificial intelligence at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada on June 6, 2019. (Photo by Mark RALSTON / AFP) (Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Galactic poses before ringing the First Trade Bell to commemorate the company’s first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on October 28, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Johannes EISELE / AFP) (Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty Images)
The billionaires are now included in the list of 24 individuals who have comercially traveled to space since the beginning of the FAA program in 2004. The FAA updated the rules around who is classified as an “astronaut,” in July of this year which excluded Branson and Bezos. Breitbart News wrote at the time:
The FAA has tightened the official definition of an astronaut, which strips Bezos and his fellow Blue Origin passengers of the term, as they have failed to meet the new criteria on their recent flights, according to a report by ABC 7. Richard Branson would have also been stripped of the title based on his Virgin Galactic flight, but it occurred about a week before the rule change.
Astronauts now have to be part of a crew that “demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety,” according to the FAA’s new rules regarding the Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program.
The updates reportedly make for the first time the rules have been changed in 17 years.
The FAA claimed that Branson and Bezos did not conduct activities that “contributed to human space flight safety,” which disqualified them. However, the FAA has since decided to include the two billionaires on the list of individuals who have FAA Commercial Space Astronaut Wings.
The program was developed by the late Patti Grace Smith, the former Associate Administrator of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation of the FAA. The program recognized pilots and flight crew who furthered the FAA’s mission to “promote the development of vehicles designed to carry humans into space.” Now that there are currently three commercial companies that have sent civilians into space, including Bezos’ Blue Origin, Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the FAA considers the mission of the program complete and is shutting it down.
The program will be ended but the FAA will still recognize any individual on an FAA-licensed spaceflight that reaches 50 statute miles above the Earth’s surface on its website.
Read more at Interesting Engineering here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com