But as the crew\u2014three Americans, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen\u2014heads back to Earth, there\u2019s no financial windfall waiting for them. No performance bonus, overtime, or hazard pay, either.<\/p>\n
Instead, the astronauts return to their government salary<\/a> that tops out around $152,000 for U.S. crew members, with Canadian pay structured on a similar sliding scale<\/a>.<\/p>\n For a mission that pushed the boundaries of human exploration, the compensation is strikingly ordinary<\/a>\u2014closer to a mid-career desk job, or even skilled trade jobs like electricians and HVAC technicians<\/a>, than a once-in-a-generation journey around the moon. But like other federal employees traveling for work, the astronauts\u2019 transportation, lodging, and meals are provided, a NASA spokesperson confirmed to Fortune last year<\/a>. They also receive a small daily stipend\u2014about $5\u2014for incidentals.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a tradeoff thousands are willing to take: NASA\u2019s class of 2025, announced last September<\/a>, selected just 10 candidates from more than 8,000 applicants\u2014an acceptance rate of roughly 0.125%, dwarfing even the most selective universities like Harvard or Stanford.<\/p>\n The future of work belongs in space, according to Elon Musk and Sam Altman<\/p>\n While only four astronauts made it into space with this month\u2019s multibillion-dollar launch, some of the world\u2019s most influential business leaders are betting that space could soon become a new frontier for work.<\/p>\n Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt to me that a decade or so away we\u2019ll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers,\u201d Pichai told Fox News<\/a> in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n Elon Musk<\/a>, too, hopes to solve AI\u2019s power problems by building out data centers in space. But as the CEO of SpaceX<\/a>, he has even bolder plans. In February, he said his company has shifted focus toward building a self-sustaining city on the moon within the next decade, a timeline he suggested is more achievable than establishing a colony on Mars.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission of SpaceX remains the same: Extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars,\u201d he wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even those less directly involved in space exploration see a shift coming. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has predicted that rapid advances could push work for Gen Alpha beyond Earth\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2035, that graduating college student, if they still go to college at all, could very well be leaving on a mission to explore the solar system on a spaceship in some completely new, exciting, super well-paid, super interesting job,\u201d Altman said<\/a> in an interview with video journalist Cleo Abram last August.<\/p>\n Still, the path to a space-based workforce remains uncertain. NASA is targeting next year to launch Artemis III<\/a>\u2014a test of lunar landers\u2014followed by Artemis IV<\/a> in 2028, which aims to return astronauts to the moon\u2019s surface. The average launch delay for major NASA projects is 12 months, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n