Fact Check: Claim that NASA astronauts get $66K starting salary doesn't add up
The average starting salary for a NASA astronaut in July 2025 was $66,026 per year.
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Context:
The claim was based on the minimum possible starting pay an astronaut could receive in 2019, but even then astronauts could start at higher pay. In 2024, all astronauts made more than double that.
In July 2025, a post about astronaut pay was shared widely over X. The post (archived), viewed 3 million times in a few days, claimed that the average starting salary for a NASA astronaut was $66,026 annually. The claim was shared with a clip of an astronaut doing a spacewalk.
The exact same claim was made in X posts that included the exact same clip in April 2025 (archived), when it was viewed 2.3 million times, and in January 2022 (archived), when it received over 22,000 likes.
(@Postinclips on X)
The claim was outdated, even when it was first shared in 2022. It also wasn't even entirely accurately in the first place; the figure in the claim was just one of several potential starting salaries for its time.
The annual pay for all NASA astronauts in 2025 was $152,258 annually, according to NASA's website. This was based on the 2024 pay schedules and was still subject to a potential increase later in the year.
The $66,000 salary figure could be found on an archived page on the NASA website from October 2019. That page explained salaries for astronaut candidates at the time were based on the federal government's general schedule pay scale, which determines the pay for most civilian government employees. Astronaut candidates were GS-11 to GS-14 on the pay scale, based on the individual's academic achievements and experience, meaning an astronaut's starting salary could be as low as the G-11 starting salary or as high as the G-14 starting salary. A person on the 2015 G-11 scale in Houston (it's unclear why the scale was based on the year 2015), where the Johnson Space Center is located, would have started at $66,026 annually. Someone at the same time and place on the G-14 scale would have started at $111,204 annually.
Snopes sent questions to NASA asking about the former pay scale, including why the 2019 page was still using the pay scale from 2015, and the likelihood an astronaut would start at the G-11 salary as opposed to higher salaries, such as the G-14 salary, but did not receive a response before publishing.
Starting in 2021, astronauts were no longer paid based on the general schedule pay scale, according to an archived page on the NASA website from October 2023. By that time, the starting salary for a NASA astronaut candidate was $141,888 annually.
Unlike the general schedule pay structure, the new pay structure for NASA astronauts started everyone on the same salary. "Though NASA continues to recruit astronauts with diverse skills sets and experience levels, all astronaut candidates begin astronaut training at the same level; no one has prior experience as an astronaut, so all astronaut candidates start at the same rate of pay," NASA wrote at the time.
"Astronaut candidates" are those who have been selected to become NASA astronauts, but who have not yet finished the training necessary for space flight. All NASA astronauts start as astronaut candidates. The 2023 NASA webpage explained that pay increases were tied to "specific, job-related milestones, such as successful completion of all astronaut training requirements." So any astronaut doing a spacewalk like the one seen in the X posts would be paid more than the starting salary.
"Archive: Astronaut Selection - Frequently Asked Questions." NASA, Internet Archive, web.archive.org/web/20191018205154/astronauts.nasa.gov/content/faq.htm. Accessed 18 Oct. 2019.
Dean, Brandi. "Archive: Becoming an Astronaut: Frequently Asked Questions." NASA, Internet Archive, 16 Jan. 2018, web.archive.org/web/20231002165809/www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/becoming-an-astronaut-frequently-asked-questions/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2023.
---. "Becoming an Astronaut: Frequently Asked Questions - NASA." NASA, 16 Jan. 2018, www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/becoming-an-astronaut-frequently-asked-questions/. Accessed 1 Aug. 2025.
"Pay & Leave : Salaries & Wages - OPM.gov." U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Jan. 2015, www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/15Tables/html/HOU.aspx. Accessed 1 Aug. 2025.
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