Weirdly Only 233 Astronaut’s In Hall of Fame And El Paso’s Danny Olivas Unbelievably Not

Three brave astronauts were inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame over the weekend.

They are Pamela Melroy, Michael Lopez-Alegria, and Scott Kelly. So, congratulations to them.

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U.S. Astronaut Hall Of Fame at Kennedy Space Center

So, yes, there IS a U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. It’s located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and it first opened in 1990.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that there’s a HOF for such a small, select group of people? So, the number of people who could claim to be an astronaut is way, way under a thousand.  Using the most generous count, there are 562 people who can be considered “astronauts”.  That’s worldwide.

Americans count for the great majority of space travelers, so the number Wikipedia lists for “U.S. Astronauts” is 339. BUT…there are already 106 Americans IN the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. That’s where I get the 233 figure from.

Beatle's Hall of Fame. BEATLES ONLY

It just seems odd that there’s a Hall of Fame for people who are a.) already famous and b.) part of such an elite, rarefied group.  The NBA, NFL, and Baseball are elite groups but we’re talking about thousands and thousands of people from each of those organizations.

It’s almost like someone saying, “Let’s have a Beatles Hall of Fame! Only people who were in the Beatles are eligible.”  Think how sad you’d feel for Ringo if you found out he was the only Beatle not in the Beatles Hall of Fame! That’s KIND OF my problem with the USAHOF. Around a third of U.S. astronauts are already IN. You know El Pasos own NASA astronaut, Danny Olivas?  NOT IN! Danny Olivas is a Ringo! This is unacceptable.

ASTRO-NOTS

All of the astronauts in the HOF are incredible, accomplished people with long Wikipedia pages. But, all the OTHER U.S. astronauts are, too. Don’t make some astronauts feel like Astro-NOTs.

There is ONE thing the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame could do to justify their existence: please, please don’t let people in who bought their way to space like that one 20-year-old douchebag who got a space trip for a birthday present and told Jeff Bezos that he’d never ordered anything from Amazon.