Do Amanda Ngoc Nguyen and Blue Origin’s all-female crew qualify as astronauts?

While Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos referred to the team as "astronauts," federal guidelines suggest they may instead be classified as "space travelers." According to the New York Post, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stipulates that to earn official astronaut status, individuals must perform tasks during flight that contribute to public or spaceflight safety.

None of the crew members piloted the fully autonomous spacecraft.

The FAA introduced its Commercial Space Astronaut Wings program in 2004 to formally recognize individuals who had flown into outer space. However, with the advent of commercial space tourism through companies like Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, the FAA revised the rules in 2021.

Under the new policy, passengers must have "demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety" in order to qualify.

Vietnamese-American civil rights activist, Amanda Ngoc Nguyen. Photo courtesy of Nguyen's X

The agency ended the Wings program in late 2021, replacing it with a broader "Human Spaceflight Recognition" list that includes all space travelers. Before the program ended, Bezos and several Blue Origin passengers had received their wings.

Despite the regulatory distinction, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an astronaut as "a person who travels beyond the earth’s atmosphere," or "a trainee for spaceflight," which would apply to the crew.

Before Monday's flight, 52 people had flown to space under Bezos’ Blue Origin program, including Bezos himself, who joined the New Shepard’s maiden voyage in 2021, according to Sky News. "Star Trek" actor William Shatner, who participated in a later mission, became the oldest person in space at age 90.

Blue Origin’s first all-female crew launched from West Texas, U.S., at 9:31 a.m. ET (13:31 GMT) on Monday aboard the New Shepard capsule. The team experienced a brief period of weightlessness before safely returning to Earth in a flight lasting approximately 11 minutes, according to a Blue Origin livestream.

The crew included singer Katy Perry; Bezos’ fiancée, Lauren Sánchez; CBS host Gayle King; NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe; Vietnamese-American activist Amanda Ngoc Nguyen; and film producer Kerianne Flynn.