Astronauts Or What? Billionaires In Space

Pardon me, my space nerd flag is flying high this week, as it should be. For this month regular people have launched into space. Well, "regular people" may not be the right word or phrase, but these guys definitely had the "right stuff"... money.

Am I jealous? Yeah, a little bit. I've always had the dream of being the first radio DJ in space, which probably still won't happen, but at least I can keep the dream alive now that regular people, not "trained astronauts", are actually making their way into space. Which brings us to this question:

What do we call them?

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I know they're calling themselves "Astronauts" but that's not fair to what we consider to be real Astronauts. Real Astronauts trained for years for the chance to fly a spaceship into the great unknown or be a Mission Specialist, Scientist, Flight Engineer or whatever else NASA has sent up there. These folks with fat wallets are pioneers for sure, credit where it's due, but in reality, they were just passengers on these flights. They were not mission-critical in a technical sense, they were in a comfy chair, wearing a flight suit on a very expensive ride.

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So what do we call them?

I think my partner Lisa Lindsey has come up with the perfect name, Spacengers. After all, "just because you have flown in a plane doesn't make you a pilot," she said.

Tell us what you think below, we want to hear if you like that or have a better suggestion.

Check Out the Best-Selling Album From the Year You Graduated High School

Do you remember the top album from the year you graduated high school? Stacker analyzed Billboard data to determine just that, looking at the best-selling album from every year going all the way back to 1956. Sales data is included only from 1992 onward when Nielsen's SoundScan began gathering computerized figures.

Going in chronological order from 1956 to 2020, we present the best-selling album from the year you graduated high school.

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