A NASA Astronaut's Salary Is Less Than You Might Think

First, keep in mind that all things are relative and that an embarrassingly small paycheck to one person is the wealth of Midas to another. Secondly, also keep in mind that we're talking about what these folks get paid to climb into an explosion machine and hang out in the vacuum of space.

According to NASA, your standard prospective civilian astronaut can expect a government established "General Schedule pay scale" at grades GS-12 through GS-13. That clears things up so spectacularly that it hardly seems worth mentioning that GS-12 starts at around $65,000 per year and GS-13 tops out at $100,000 and change. 

So the good news is, most astronauts aren't likely to starve to death. The bad news is, and we hate to drive this point into the ground, these people are sitting in rocket propelled tubes, skedaddling into the maddening nothingness of outer space, and doing it for less than what Progressive pays the actress who plays Flo.

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