Bezos’ Blue Origin cleared of safety allegations by FAA
Dec. 10, 2021

Blue Origin flew Jeff Bezos and three others to the boundary of space on July 20. Above, Bezos is shown at a news conference that day. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America)

By Alan Levin
Bloomberg
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has been cleared of safety allegations and can proceed with a planned launch on Saturday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Friday in an emailed statement that it had “found no specific safety issues.”

The FAA in September began a review of the company after a whistle-blower wrote an essay alleging that the company’s culture had compromised safety. Blue Origin flew Bezos and three others to the boundary of space on July 20 and plans to take another group on its rocket and capsule on Saturday.

FAA: No more commercial astronaut wings

NASA astronauts will still get their wings


Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press File photo: Oliver Daemen, from left, Mark Bezos and Wally Funk, look on as Jeff Bezos, second from right, is awarded his Blue Origin made astronaut wings by former NASA astronaut, Jeff Ashby.

PUBLISHED: December 10, 2021
By Marcia Dunn | Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Heads up, future space travelers: No more commercial astronaut wings will be awarded from the Federal Aviation Administration after this year.

The FAA said Friday it’s clipping its astronaut wings because too many people are now launching into space and it’s getting out of the astronaut designation business entirely.

The news comes one day ahead of Blue Origin’s planned liftoff from West Texas with former NFL player and TV celebrity Michael Strahan. He and his five fellow passengers will still be eligible for wings since the FAA isn’t ending its long-standing program until Jan. 1.

NASA’s astronauts also have nothing to worry about going forward — they’ll still get their pins from the space agency.

All 15 people who rocketed into space for the first time this year on private U.S. flights will be awarded their wings, according to the FAA. That includes Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, as well as the other space newbies who accompanied them on their brief up-and-down trips. The companies handed out their own version of astronaut wings after the flights.

All four passengers on SpaceX’s first private flight to orbit last September also qualified for FAA wings.

Adding Blue Origin’s next crew of six will bring the list to 30. The FAA’ s first commercial wings recipient was in 2004.

Earlier this year, the FAA tightened up its qualifications, specifying that awardees must be trained crew members, versus paying customers along for the ride. But with the program ending, the decision was made to be all-inclusive, a spokesman said.

Future space tourists will get their names put on a FAA commercial spaceflight list. To qualify, they must soar at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) on an FAA-sanctioned launch.

“The U.S. commercial human spaceflight industry has come a long way from conducting test flights to launching paying customers into space,” the FAA’s associate administrator Wayne Monteith said in a statement. “Now it’s time to offer recognition to a larger group of adventurers daring to go to space.”