How much does an astronaut earn in space?

NASA's civilian astronaut corps belongs to the US federal civil service and is paid on the General Schedule, the same scale as a federal government engineer or lawyer. Recent selections place new astronauts at grades GS-13 and GS-14, with step increases for seniority and the geographic pay supplement for the Houston area. Those who come from the armed forces don't move to that payroll: they keep drawing pay from their service, with their rank and allowances, while assigned to Johnson Space Center. At ESA the scheme is equivalent, with grade A2 contracts that can progress up to A4 within the agency's common pay system.

There's no launch bonus, no spacewalk bonus, no per-orbit-day bonus. A mission is processed as an official trip, and the astronaut receives the ordinary per diem of any employee on travel status, amounts that are trivial next to the base salary. Hence the often-repeated anecdote about Apollo crews returning from the Moon with a handful of dollars in travel allowance: that was exactly the administrative mechanism at work.

The appeal of the job isn't the pay. A military test pilot, a surgeon, or a PhD in geophysics with the same qualifications usually earns more elsewhere, and civil-servant status imposes strict limits: no advertising, sponsorships, or paid lectures while on active duty. In exchange, the position is stable, training never stops, and the number of applicants keeps growing: every NASA or ESA selection round draws thousands of applications for a handful of seats.