I’ve seen two movies that show astronauts at home. One is Terms of Endearment, where Jack Nicholson’s character is an astronaut who lives in an older, though very clearly well-to-do, section of Houston. The other is Apollo 13, where Tom Hanks’ character is an astronaut who seems to have a pretty comfortable home (lots of room, a pool) and can afford to send his kid to military school.
However, reading about the Apollo 11 mission, I read something to the effect that Armstrong & Co’s pay actually went down from some paltry sum (around $30/day, IIRC) to an even paltrier sum ($5 or so less per day) while they were on the mission, because they were “fed and housed at government expense.”
So, what’s the straight poop on astronauts and wealth? I see three possibilities:
They don’t do too shabby; most astronauts are officers around the rank of Major or higher. Majors aren’t rolling in it, but they’re not poor, either.
They’re rollin’ in it; astronauts are highly-trained and highly-skilled individuals doing dangerous work and are paid accordingly.
They’re rollin in it; book deals, personal apperances, etc.
Wow, 2 replies, and nobody’s quoted Homer Simpson?
“Marge, we’d be RICH! Richer than Astronauts!”
That’s all I really have to add to this thread, other than the fact that, since they’re mostly military folk, they’re probably not much richer than your average Top Gun. (And yes, I know Top Gun is Navy, and NASA is usually Air Force. I also don’t care.)
One of the Apollo missions (I think it was Apollo 12) had an all navy crew.
Astronauts, AFAIK, get paid the same as anyone else of the same rank and the same time in service. They probably also get hazard pay, but a lot of service men and women get that as well.
Jack Nicholson’s character was a retired astronaut, IIRC, who could have made a bunch of money in the private sector after retiring from being an astronaut. Who wouldn’t hire an astronaut. As for Apollo 13, it was a movie. Additionally, it was set in the 60’s. You could get a pretty good home on a much lower salary back then.
Also, I don’t doubt that the government made life a little bit easier for astronauts during the space race.
The Mercury Astronaughts split a $500,000 contract from LIFE that worked out to about $24,000 a year, on top of their 7-8K salary from the program. That was pretty good money in 1961.
Well, Col. Frank Borman got to be President of Eastern Airlines for awhile. That means he also had to put up with Frank Lorenzo (which is a really, really bad downside).
Perhaps that provided the grubsteak for the Borman Automotive Group in Las Cruces, NM.
The Col. also disappears for a couple of weeks in the middle of Summer. It has something to do with that group that’s supposed to be secret that shows up at a retreat somewhere in the San Francisco area. I think Kissinger was a member.
If you’re an astronaut, you have a good chance of getting a very lucrative consulting position in some sort of aerospace company.
However, Buzz Aldrin went through a lot of personal problems after he left NASA. I think he might have had some financial setbacks.
No one else has mentioned another famous fictional ex-astronaut, Maurice Minifield of TV’s “Northern Exposure”. He was a very wealthy man. He was portrayed as a bachelor, but also a member of either the Mercury or Gemini programs and I believe all of the astronauts in that program were married.
In addition to the pilots, who are often (always?) military, there are also engineer and scientist astronauts. I suspect if the engineers are military, they make about what the pilots do, and if they’re civilian, they’re probably better off. If the scientists make about what other scientists do, they’re not particularly well off. Does anybody know about compensation for these types of astronauts?
Some info from that site, also I love that URL.
"f a student has hopes for a large salary comparable to those in the private sector–look elsewhere.
Astronauts begin their salary in accordance with the US Government pay scale at GS-11 (approximately
$39,000.) status and top off at GS-14 (approximately $78,000). "
All of these people were and are highly intelligent and obsessively motivated. Even if there had never been an space program, one could expect a lot of them to have become wealthy anyway.