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#960
by
tater
on 10 Mar, 2017 14:31
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I'd think a broad definition makes the most sense. Part of me would want to not include suborbital flights at all, but then Alan Shepard ceases to be an astronaut--
No, he still flew on Apollo 14
Right, I edited it for clarity. I was thinking that in historical writing, you'd have to then not consider him an astronaut until he was past suborbital. So you'd then have to talk about them using another term, say "space passenger" (not serious here) so and so... then later, when they fly in space orbitally they become an astronaut, which is sort of a mess).
Like I said, the broader definition makes more sense. The issue with suborbital only becomes confusing when more and more people take hops, or if, for example, suborbital ever became a flight path for what is not airline traffic (distant future), then perhaps thousands a day fly into space for a few minutes.
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#961
by
tater
on 10 Mar, 2017 14:37
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Jim Lovell comments on the SpaceX mission and comparisons with Apollo 8:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-030817a-spacex-moon-lovell-apollo8.html
The description Lovell uses for the people going on this trip is "passengers", since the vehicle will be automated and if nothing goes wrong they don't have any mission responsibilities. But even as passengers, he said:
"You have to remember, it's not just the view. It is also the experience. It's the fact that they will come back and at the next cocktail party, they will be the center of attention," he said. "It is the fact that they will have done something that only a few other people have ever done."
I like the term "passenger", and it avoids the sub-categorization challenge we've had between "tourist", "adventurer" and so on.
The issue here I suppose is "mission responsibilities." That certainly works at some level, but would a filmmaker taking such a flight then not be a passenger if they made a film? Would that be their "mission responsibility?" It's nice that this is even a conversation to have, frankly, instead of all such travel that is plausible in the near future requiring a government program be involved.
On the same, automated spacecraft, if a SpaceX employee were the passenger, but they were to monitor the craft as a sort of test pilot, then they have a responsibility, and they count?
I'm sort of looking forward, though, since I can only see humans doing less and less of the flying... I think we'll all face the same issue WRT automobiles in the not too distant future as it becomes clear that the weak link in safety is the squishy bit behind the wheel.
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#962
by
Rocket Science
on 10 Mar, 2017 15:23
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Jim Lovell comments on the SpaceX mission and comparisons with Apollo 8:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-030817a-spacex-moon-lovell-apollo8.html
The description Lovell uses for the people going on this trip is "passengers", since the vehicle will be automated and if nothing goes wrong they don't have any mission responsibilities. But even as passengers, he said:
"You have to remember, it's not just the view. It is also the experience. It's the fact that they will come back and at the next cocktail party, they will be the center of attention," he said. "It is the fact that they will have done something that only a few other people have ever done."
I like the term "passenger", and it avoids the sub-categorization challenge we've had between "tourist", "adventurer" and so on.
The issue here I suppose is "mission responsibilities." That certainly works at some level, but would a filmmaker taking such a flight then not be a passenger if they made a film? Would that be their "mission responsibility?" It's nice that this is even a conversation to have, frankly, instead of all such travel that is plausible in the near future requiring a government program be involved.
On the same, automated spacecraft, if a SpaceX employee were the passenger, but they were to monitor the craft as a sort of test pilot, then they have a responsibility, and they count?
I'm sort of looking forward, though, since I can only see humans doing less and less of the flying... I think we'll all face the same issue WRT automobiles in the not too distant future as it becomes clear that the weak link in safety is the squishy bit behind the wheel.
As I have stated many pages back from fly my flying experience: If you are "not" the operator of the craft, you are considered a passenger, even "if" you hold a pilot's license and you are not PIC... What activities you choose do as a passenger has no bearing on the matter...
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#963
by
tater
on 10 Mar, 2017 15:48
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As I have stated many pages back from fly my flying experience: If you are "not" the operator of the craft, you are considered a passenger, even "if" you hold a pilot's license and you are not PIC... What activities you choose do as a passenger has no bearing on the matter...
Absolutely.
There have been many NASA astronauts who were not capable of flying the Shuttle, for example.
I suppose once the number of people who have been to space reaches some critical level, it will cease to matter.
It will probably progress such that if your
job is to fly in space, you are an astronaut (this would discount people like Jake Garn, Christa McAuliffe, etc, since it was not really their job, but single trips---but we'd assume anyone already labeled astronaut will keep the label). If you are merely visiting space, then perhaps another label (or none at all) is used. Once people live in space, then the word needs to evolve again, or disappear, since everyone living in space being an "astronaut" would be silly. It will become like "aeronaut," an anachronism that clearly refers to the age of early space exploration when such travel was not routine.
There's a possible definition, link it to presumed risk. If the chance of fatal mishap is greater than X, then you are an astronaut. Once it's as safe as air travel was at some historical point, it ceases to get a name (then the professionals will be called "spacecraft pilot" or whatever applies).
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#964
by
LouScheffer
on 10 Mar, 2017 16:33
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The discussion of semantics regarding what to call them is entirely reasonable, although it perhaps deserves a thread to itself.
Ships and airlines have made many of these distinctions for years. The captain is the ultimate decision maker. A pilot steers the ship. The crew are professionals trained to support the mission, with many different skills. The categories overlap, so the captain is part of the crew, and some of the time may be the pilot. The passengers have little or no responsibility for running the ship, except in emergencies when they may be pressed into service.
I too look forward to the day when spaceflight is common enough to make distinctions like this useful.
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#965
by
DOCinCT
on 10 Mar, 2017 18:23
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The discussion of semantics regarding what to call them is entirely reasonable, although it perhaps deserves a thread to itself.
Ships and airlines have made many of these distinctions for years. The captain is the ultimate decision maker. A pilot steers the ship. The crew are professionals trained to support the mission, with many different skills. The categories overlap, so the captain is part of the crew, and some of the time may be the pilot. The passengers have little or no responsibility for running the ship, except in emergencies when they may be pressed into service.
I too look forward to the day when spaceflight is common enough to make distinctions like this useful.
When one of the Wright brothers had an additional party on a flight in 1908, he was a passenger (not operator, or pilot).
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#966
by
Ric Capucho
on 10 Mar, 2017 20:48
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Jim Lovell comments on the SpaceX mission and comparisons with Apollo 8:
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-030817a-spacex-moon-lovell-apollo8.html
The description Lovell uses for the people going on this trip is "passengers", since the vehicle will be automated and if nothing goes wrong they don't have any mission responsibilities. But even as passengers, he said:
"You have to remember, it's not just the view. It is also the experience. It's the fact that they will come back and at the next cocktail party, they will be the center of attention," he said. "It is the fact that they will have done something that only a few other people have ever done."
I like the term "passenger", and it avoids the sub-categorization challenge we've had between "tourist", "adventurer" and so on.
The issue here I suppose is "mission responsibilities." That certainly works at some level, but would a filmmaker taking such a flight then not be a passenger if they made a film? Would that be their "mission responsibility?" It's nice that this is even a conversation to have, frankly, instead of all such travel that is plausible in the near future requiring a government program be involved.
On the same, automated spacecraft, if a SpaceX employee were the passenger, but they were to monitor the craft as a sort of test pilot, then they have a responsibility, and they count?
I'm sort of looking forward, though, since I can only see humans doing less and less of the flying... I think we'll all face the same issue WRT automobiles in the not too distant future as it becomes clear that the weak link in safety is the squishy bit behind the wheel.
As I have stated many pages back from fly my flying experience: If you are "not" the operator of the craft, you are considered a passenger, even "if" you hold a pilot's license and you are not PIC... What activities you choose do as a passenger has no bearing on the matter...
Pilots occasionally call 'em SLF... Self-Loading Freight.
Ric
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#967
by
oldAtlas_Eguy
on 10 Mar, 2017 21:15
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My take on the complexity of identifying what the term Astronaut means:
Astronaut
->Type
-Operator
*Craft Pilot
*other systems operator
-Passenger
*Transit to location where the operator job is
* Tourist
->Destinations
-Suborbital
-Orbital
*EVA
-Deep Space
*EVA
-Exo-planetary Surface (includes moons)
*Surface Excursion
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#968
by
Proponent
on 10 Mar, 2017 21:17
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Anyone in a U.S. government program that flew over 50 miles in altitude earned their astronaut wings including X-15 pilots...
The 50-mile criterion was an Air Force creation, and I believe only Air Force pilots received astronaut's wings.
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#969
by
manoweb
on 10 Mar, 2017 21:22
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So Navy astronauts (I know there have been a few) did not get those?
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#970
by
Toast
on 10 Mar, 2017 21:39
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So Navy astronauts (I know there have been a few) did not get those?
It was my understanding that they receive a set of wings, but they are
slightly different.
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#971
by
manoweb
on 10 Mar, 2017 21:48
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#972
by
Rocket Science
on 10 Mar, 2017 22:17
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Anyone in a U.S. government program that flew over 50 miles in altitude earned their astronaut wings including X-15 pilots...
The 50-mile criterion was an Air Force creation, and I believe only Air Force pilots received astronaut's wings.
Correct, the FAI set the boundary for space at 62 miles... All NASA X-15 "astro-flghts" including civilians received their wings, some posthumously many years later... Two met the FAI 62 mile Karman line...
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#973
by
Elvis in Space
on 10 Mar, 2017 22:39
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I prefer the word "astronaut" to encompass any early space voyager. For at least the next few years anyone in space gets the title of "astronaut" as a result of the romantic sounding Latin origins of the word - "Sailor among the stars". Just like the guy who did the cooking on Leif Ericson's ship was a "Viking explorer".
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#974
by
notsorandom
on 11 Mar, 2017 00:58
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What we call the two people on this flight seem like it was settled long ago. Dennis Tito doesn't call himself an astronaut.
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#975
by
TomH
on 11 Mar, 2017 01:39
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Oh good grief, the feeble semantics here are absurd. Etymologically, the word is a modern compound construct of two Greek bases. astro from astron: stars plural and naut: sailor, thus he or she who sails among the stars. No human has ever accomplished interstellar travel and certainly not by means of a solar sail. The meaning is connotative (figurative), not denotative (literal), and as such is subject to interpretation. This is as far off topic as I have ever seen Chris allow. This is below the quality of most NSF threads. Do we need a linguistics forum with an etymology thread? This is enough quibbling insofar as the topic at hand!
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#976
by
IntoTheVoid
on 11 Mar, 2017 05:01
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What we call the two people on this flight seem like it was settled long ago. Dennis Tito doesn't call himself an astronaut.
Perhaps that's a simple enough definition.
If you were paid to go, presumably because you had a useful purpose, then you're an astronaut. And if you paid, then you're not.
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#977
by
Kaputnik
on 11 Mar, 2017 06:44
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What we call the two people on this flight seem like it was settled long ago. Dennis Tito doesn't call himself an astronaut.
Perhaps that's a simple enough definition.
If you were paid to go, presumably because you had a useful purpose, then you're an astronaut. And if you paid, then you're not.
So if you set up and fund a company and make yourself an employee of that company, and it flies you into space, are you an astronaut?
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#978
by
MATTBLAK
on 11 Mar, 2017 07:29
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Good grief! I go away from a thread for a few hours - and it goes mad!!
Now we're arguing semantics?!
It's going to be a manned trip around the freaken Moon, guys! Aren't even some of you going to get behind this?! Or even be a little happy?! Do I know that it's potentially a stunt, compared to a real exploration mission? Yes; probably I do. Do I care?
NO!!In this era of little leadership and budget-strangled mediocrity, this mission should be treated as a step in the right direction. If most (
not all, sadly) of us could get behind this flight - this could be our chance to bootstrap something better into being, before too long...
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#979
by
Rocket Science
on 11 Mar, 2017 13:08
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Good grief! I go away from a thread for a few hours - and it goes mad!! Now we're arguing semantics?! It's going to be a manned trip around the freaken Moon, guys! Aren't even some of you going to get behind this?! Or even be a little happy?! Do I know that it's potentially a stunt, compared to a real exploration mission? Yes; probably I do. Do I care? NO!!
In this era of little leadership and budget-strangled mediocrity, this mission should be treated as a step in the right direction. If most (not all, sadly) of us could get behind this flight - this could be our chance to bootstrap something better into being, before too long...
Maybe some of these people work for ASAP...
Now we're arguing semantics?! It's going to be a manned trip around the freaken Moon, guys! Aren't even some of you going to get behind this?! Or even be a little happy?! Do I know that it's potentially a stunt, compared to a real exploration mission? Yes; probably I do. Do I care? NO!!