As more companies start selling tickets to travel into space, people are asking: Who gets to call themselves an astronaut? It is no longer an easy question to answer. People who are very rich are able to pay to go into space. Russian space officials have been calling them spaceflight participants for many years. The new supervisor of the U.S. space agency NASA is Bill Nelson. He does not consider himself an astronaut although he spent six days in space in 1986. He was a congressman then. He told The Associated Press that he believes the term “astronaut” should be for professionals. Richard Garriott is a computer game developer. He paid a lot of money for his trip to the International Space Station in 2008 on a Russian spacecraft. He hates the term space tourist. He said in an email, “I am an astronaut.” He said he trained for two years to go into space. Axiom Space’s Michael Lopez-Alegria is a former NASA astronaut. He will join three businessmen on a SpaceX spacecraft on a trip to the space station planned for January. They each paid $55 million for the trip. Lopez-Alegria said they do not consider themselves space tourists since they will be doing research. Recently, Axiom Space said there will be a second flight to the space station next year. Peggy Whitson will be on that flight. She is a retired NASA astronaut who has spent 665 days in space. Whitson will bring John Shoffner. He is a businessman and race car driver from Knoxville, Tennessee. He is also paying about $55 million. Shoffner said he asked Peggy to make the training difficult for him. He said, “Make me an astronaut.” The word astronaut comes from the Greek words for star and sailor. The idea is easy to market and astronauts appear in movies and popular culture. Jeff Bezos is the owner of the rocket company, Blue Origin. It will call future clients “astronauts.” It is selling a place on its first spaceflight with people, planned for July. NASA even has a new term for this kind of trip: PAM for Private Astronaut Mission.