In case your eight-day work journey was unexpectedly prolonged by 9 months, you would possibly anticipate to rack up some additional time pay.
Not so for Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, the NASA astronauts who spent 278 additional days on the Worldwide Area Station after their spacecraft malfunctioned. On Tuesday, they splashed down off the Gulf Coast of Florida, ending a saga that had captivated the nation since final summer season.
However regardless of their far-flung vacation spot, and the hazard and romance of house journey, in terms of pay, Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore are handled successfully like every other authorities worker who takes a enterprise journey to the following state over.
“Whereas in house, NASA astronauts are on official journey orders as federal staff,” Jimi Russell, a spokesman for the company’s Area Operations Mission Directorate, mentioned through e-mail.
Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore have been primarily unable to go away their office, a cluster of modules going across the Earth each 90 minutes, for greater than 9 months. However astronauts aboard the Worldwide Area Station obtain no additional time, vacation or weekend pay, Mr. Russell mentioned.
Their transportation, meals and lodging are lined, and like different federal staff on work journeys, they obtain a each day “incidentals” allowance, Mr. Russell mentioned. It is a per diem fee given to staff within the place of reimbursements for journey bills.
The incidentals allowance for journey to any location is $5 per day, Mr. Russell mentioned.
Which means along with their annual wage — about $152,258, in accordance with NASA — Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams obtained round $1,430 for his or her 286 days in house.
What incidental bills would possibly Mr. Wilmore and Ms. Williams have incurred whereas in orbit 250 miles above Earth? It’s unclear. Normally, these are “charges and suggestions given to porters, baggage carriers, lodge employees, and employees on ships,” in accordance with the U.S. Basic Providers Administration.
Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore didn’t precisely see their prolonged keep as a hardship. “That is my glad place,” Ms. Williams informed reporters in September. “I really like being up right here in house. It’s simply enjoyable, you already know?”
Nonetheless, if a $5 per diem appears low for a job that causes sufficient muscle and bone loss so that you can want a gurney whenever you return to Earth, spare a thought for Clayton Anderson, the NASA astronaut who spent 152 days aboard the Worldwide Area Station in 2007.
Mr. Anderson mentioned he obtained a per diem of solely about $1.20, or $172 in complete.
Being an astronaut was superb and his dream job, Mr. Anderson mentioned on social media in 2022, “but it surely IS a authorities job with authorities pay.”
He added: “I might have accomplished WAY higher with mileage!”
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