[coderdude]

>>SALARY RANGE: $64,724.00 to $141,715.00 / Per Year

Space Shuttle Endeavour cost about $1.7 billion, each Space Shuttle flight cost $450 million, $480.1 million has been awarded through the COTS program - and they would pay an astronaut $65k/year. I'm guessing they feel that the rare opportunity to be in space is enough pay for you. ;)

I'd still do it if I qualified for it.

PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy and "funny" comments. It's like wading through crap.

[redthrowaway]

>PS: I wish people would stop with the lazy and "funny" comments. It's like wading through crap.

Indeed. I think the submission being a light/fluff piece brings out commenters who otherwise would stay away. That's not a complaint about the submission, however. It's both informative and, on a deep and nerdly level, really cool.

[sliverstorm]

I'd still do it if I qualified for it.

Hence why they don't have to pay astronauts half a million.

[ww520]

It depends where you live. In the NASA launch area, it goes a long way.

[bbrizzi]

I find this low too but the job title is "Astronaut Candidate". This probably does not guarantee that you'll actually go to space. If you manage to go through all the training and get on a real space mission, the salary will probably be higher.

[tomkarlo]

Why would they pay more? It's not like you're going to quit after getting selected for flight just because you want a $10K raise.

[rdtsc]

A lot of astronauts didn't actually fly anywhere. A lot of them have spent decades training and waiting. So it doesn't even guarantee you'll fly anywhere (well except Baikonur or Moscow for training).

[reeses]

They've almost always been on the same GS scale as almost every other federal employee. $141k seems high from what I remember, but the locality adjustment may top out around there.

[wlievens]

I don't think there's ever been an astronaut who did it for the paycheck. All of them would probably pay for the opportunity.

[vilius]

in a sense, it is still a competitive salary