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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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Wait. Are we seriously saying that Katy Perry and Gayle King are on par with Yuri Gagarin now? This just gets funnier by the minute.
What's the actual difference? Any history book will confirm that Gagarin had as much control of his craft as Katy Perry or Enos the chimp did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_X-15
The pilots of the X-15 flew into space and landed their craft.
The difference is, Gagarin was actually capable of piloting the craft.
No, he wasn't, because there were no controls for him to use.
Of course there were. They just weren't sure what the effects of being in space were going to be on his mind and body. They had no idea if he would lose his mind in free-fall, or if he'd suffer a stroke from the g-forces required to reach orbit, or just simply pass out. So the first flight was set to autopilot. It was as much a live human experiment, as it was a test of their equipment. But he definitely had the code to unlock the controls if he needed to.
Bottom line is, he had been a pilot for most of his life, and was fully trained to operate that craft with or without the safety protocols in place. The training that all those early astronauts/cosmonauts went through was insane. The levels of physical and mental competence they expected from them, was more than any standard training given to regular pilots.
It's not like they just grabbed some celebrity off a stage and let them experience free-fall for 11 minutes, so they could plug their upcoming concert tour.
TIL.
None of that changes the fact that the original definition of 'astronaut' was anyone who traveled into space [60 miles up] as a pilot or passenger.