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Trump official to Katy Perry and Bezos’ fiancée: “You cannot identify as an astronaut”
(arstechnica.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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While I'm disgusted by this whole pr stunt by Katy Petty, an astronaut is literally just a person trained to travel in a spacecraft beyond the earths atmosphere. pr Merriam Webster. So is she an astronaut? Assuming the spacecraft actually left the earths atmosphere, then yes. She can identify herself as an astronaut. Doesn't make her anywhere near as cool an astronaut as the people who work and do research in space, but that's not necessarily part of the definition.
No. They weren't "trained to travel in a spacecraft". It was fully automated. They were just passengers on an 11 minute flight.
Seriously, if that makes them astronauts...then everyone who's been on an airplane, is a pilot.
Yuri Gagarin's flight was entirely automated. He went a bit higher and made a full orbit, but I'm pretty sure everyone agrees he's an astronaut.
Sure, but he was the very first person to ever fly in space so that definitely counts for something. Additionally, he could control the spacecraft if there was an emergency.