Business · Fortune Technology
Artemis II’s astronauts are on their way home—a six-figure salary but no overtime or hazard pay awaits them back on Earth
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All eyes were on the Artemis II astronauts yesterday as they made history looping around the far side of the moon and traveling further into space than any humans ever.
Key facts
- It’s a tradeoff thousands are willing to take: NASA’s class of 2025, announced last September, selected 10 candidates from more than 8,000 applicants—an acceptance rate of roughly 0.125%, dwarfing
- For now, the clearest path into the industry remains on Earth: Aerospace engineers earn about $135,000 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics —with the field expected to grow by 6%
- NASA is targeting next year to launch Artemis III —a test of lunar landers—followed by Artemis IV in 2028, which aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said his company hopes to begin testing hardware as early as 2027 that would place data centers in orbit, using satellites to handle growing computing demands
Summary
But as the crew—three Americans, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen—heads back to Earth, there’s no financial windfall waiting for them. Instead, the astronauts return to their government salary that tops out around $152,000 for U.S. crew members, with Canadian pay structured on a similar sliding scale. For a mission that pushed the boundaries of human exploration, the compensation is strikingly ordinary —closer to a mid-career desk job, or even skilled trade jobs like electricians and HVAC technicians, than a once-in-a-generation journey around the moon. It’s a tradeoff thousands are willing to take: NASA’s class of 2025, announced last September, selected 10 candidates from more than 8,000 applicants—an acceptance rate of roughly 0.125%, dwarfing even the most selective universities like Harvard or Stanford.