What should we call people who pay to fly to space

[Pueo]

What should we call people who pay to fly to space, or those who fly to space outside the auspices of a national space agency?  While this topic has come up several times in relation to Roscosmos and Space Adventures, New Shepard, Virgin Galactic, dearMoon, and the Inspiration4 it doesn't appear to have its own thread.
Some suggestion from previous discussions:

astronaut
space tourist
crew
spaceflight participant
space traveler

What do you think, and why?

[KilroySmith]

Initially they'll call themselves "Astronauts", because it's cool.  Eventually, they'll simply be called "passengers" as people who pay to get on a cruise ship or get in an airplane get called. 

The Astronaut term will get abandoned; much as "aeronaut" was.  Eventually, we'll have scientists who work in space, and crew who man the space ships (like pilots and flight attendants on airplanes), and other pedestrian terms for the various other jobs that occur.  But the paying passengers will be called, passengers. 

[Asteroza]

Customers, same as in town...

[shark0302]

Space chumps, astrochump

Sent from my SM-T860 using Tapatalk

[chopsticks]

What do you call someone who flies on an airplane? (Not the pilot) Or the person sitting next to you on a train?

[joek]

What should we call people who pay to fly to space ...

FAA has specific designations; see Human Spaceflight, FAA; and specifically 14 CFR Parts 401, 415, 431, 435, 440 and 460 Human Space Flight Requirements for Crew and Space Flight Participants; Final Rule, Dec-2016. Whether you agree with those designations is another matter. Feel free to knock yourself out coming up with other names.

[fraser]

Yep - passengers

[JMS]

What do you call someone who flies on an airplane? (Not the pilot) Or the person sitting next to you on a train?

These folks are/will be flying on rockets. Not 757's or Amtrack.
There is a clear difference.

[panjabi]

Paxo-Nauts!  They are passenger astronauts!  Both parties win.

Now if you want to get lexical..

Astro means "stars" in Greek and "naut" means "Sailor".  It may be implied that the Sailor is the one sailing the ship

"Perii̱gi̱tí̱s" means tourist in Greek
"Taxidef̱tí̱s" means traveler in Greek

So....  AstroPeri or AstroTaxi  for a Star Tourist or a Star Traveler

AstroTaxi has a nice ring.... After all, these new generation vehicles are like Space Taxis!

[JMS]

They will be referred to as astronauts.
No matter what the debate in these threads decide upon.
Mark my prediction.

[schaban]

Cargonauts?

[goretexguy]

Tourists.
Adventurers.
Lucky bast***s.

Edit: in seriousness, they'll probably have a term consistent with their purpose. Some will be real trained astronauts or cosmonauts. Others will be scientists or 'mission specialists.'

 The first thousand or so will call themselves astronauts and probably even get a certificate, kinda like Concorde passengers got a special faster than sound certificate after a flight. Over time, they'll become tourists,  pioneers and settlers.

[sdsds]

It's likely none among us is a theoretical lexicographer by profession.

That said, I'm interested in what we're going to call people who once went into space, having paid for the privilege.

It's likely to change over time. Initially I think we'll call them "rich."

[daedalus1]

Everyone by whatever means who travel on the earth are 'earth tourists', but seeing that everyone does that it is pointless using the word 'earth', so just 'tourist' suffices. People who travel to space logically should then be known as space tourists, keeping the distinguishing word 'space'.

[Svetoslav]

touristonauts

[hoku]

Floaters for those on a suborbital ride, since they could briefly float in zero-g
Leviators for those completing at least one orbit, as they could levitate in zero-g for an extended period
 

P.S.: We need a tiered naming scheme, so that folks can strive to unlock various achievement levels: Librator for having visited one of the Lagrangian points, Gator for having been at the Gateway, Lunator, .... ;-)

edit: Levitator -> Leviator (easier to pronounce, sounds cooler, closer to Aviator) + addendum

[rlhamil]

Tourists if they're useless and need babysitting.

Astronauts if they have the basic training to the point that they don't need babysitting and aren't useless, esp. if they help with what they are able to do that doesn't require more advanced training. There's always room for help keeping track of things, cleaning, etc, a test subject for human in space experiments, etc. Not every professional astronaut is a pilot, although they'll probably have some kind of useful science background otherwise. In the Shuttle days, the level of training I'm thinking of, aside from expertise with a specific payload, applied to "payload specialists".

If their presence contributes more than they're paying for the training, ride and board (not counting publicity), they're entitled to a little credit, IMO.

[sdsds]

Now that I've found the thread from which this one was spun out, I have another thought to share.

The amazingly brave people who earned the title "astronaut" the hard way were "test pilots." They had the appearance of being calm when under extreme pressure. Armstrong is of course the ultimate example. Preface that phrase with whatever is appropriate: "orbital test pilot," "sub-orbital test pilot," "rocket test pilot," etc.

For Armstrong, his skip reentry flight (before anyone knew skip reentry was a possibility) certainly holds up compared with landing Eagle on the Moon. But then again so too does his abort from 60 meters altitude in the LLTV. That was epic stuff!

[MATTBLAK]

Citizen Explorers.

[kevinof]

Lucky