You Will Never Guess What the Stranded Astronauts Got Paid for Their Trouble

During their months-long extended stay on the International Space Station, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore didn't get overtime — but they did get a meager $5 per day allowance on top of their salaries.

In a statement to the New York Times, a NASA spokesperson revealed that the stranded pair — who just splashed down to Earth on a SpaceX capsule after spending an extra 278 days aboard the ISS than expected due to the malfunctioning of Boeing's cursed Starliner rocket — were not eligible for any overtime pay.

In fact, astronauts on the ISS don't ever receive overtime, or extra pay on holidays and weekends, as spokesperson Jim Russell of the space agency's Space Operations Mission Directorate told the newspaper.

"While in space, NASA astronauts are on official travel orders as federal employees," Russell explained. As such, they — and seemingly their fellow astronauts — receive the same $5 "incidentals" allowance set by the Internal Revenue Service for any travel, regardless of location.

To put that figure in perspective: most states (except for New Jersey and Mississippi) pay jurors more than that per day — and also, jury duty doesn't take place in the extreme environment of space.

Obviously, that extra $5 isn't the only money that Williams and Wilmore were paid. As the NYT notes, they both make $152,258 per year — the standard annual astronaut salary, per NASA, which is just under $22K less than what members of Congress are paid. Plus, as Russell notes, they have all of their lodging, transportation, and meals covered (though the Space Station on which astronauts stay does require them to recycle their own urine and sweat for drinking water.)

Still, it seems patently absurd that the pair who expected to spend about a week on the Space Station are only going to get roughly $1,430 for all those extra months orbiting the Earth. Were that a tax return, it would be a pretty good figure — but as a per diem in exchange for the "incidental" physical and mental stress they accrue in space, it's pretty crappy.

That said, it could be worse. As the NYT expounded, NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson only got $1.20 per day for incidentals during his 152-day stay on the Space Station back in 2007. That meant he only got $172 in total.

"It IS a government job with government pay," Anderson wrote in a 2022 Facebook post, which the newspaper cited. "But that’s okay too, it's a job I did because I dreamed of and loved it, not because of the money I could earn."

Wilmore, at least, echoed that sentiment in September when telling reporters via telecast that the ISS is his "happy place."

"I love being up here in space," he said. "It’s just fun, you know?"

More on the Starliner astronauts: Trump Ridiculed for Claiming He Rescued the Stranded Astronauts

The post You Will Never Guess What the Stranded Astronauts Got Paid for Their Trouble appeared first on Futurism.