TrueMetis wrote: ↑Thu May 17, 2018 2:21 pm
Perhaps someone should have explained to Gene that astronaut is a civilian position. There's no rank that comes with it. Astronauts with rank earned that rank totally separately.
Astronauts during Gene's time were always military, there were no civilians going to space back then.
There were. Ex-military are now civilians. Neil Armstrong may have been air force but he retired in 1960. Which means when he was recruited to NASA in 1962 as a pilot he was a civilian. Funnily enough the fact he was no longer military was a reason he wasn't part of the first group of astronauts. That group did have to be military.
In any event 1962, Neil Armstrong. One of the first two civilians in space alongside Elliot See.
Riedquat wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 6:24 pm
Why would an organisation in the future necessarily follow any particular current military organisation instead of just borrowing some of the names? It's true that it comes across more a case of "never really thought about it or looked at it closely", so it is more a case of getting it wrong, but I don't see any reason why the differences couldn't be deliberate and valid.
It's because they make no sense as a whole, as they are inconsistent and used in ways that makes ranks meaningless. Look around organized militaries in history and the current world. There are reasons for why things are organized in very similar ways everywhere.
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TrueMetis wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 9:11 pm
In any event 1962, Neil Armstrong. One of the first two civilians in space alongside Elliot See.
See died before going into space. Technically, there's also Tereshkova, but she was made an honorary part of the Soviet air force before she flew.
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