I was just wondering aloud to Jenny a couple days ago, “What do you think the pay structure for those stranded astronauts is?” Is it by the hour, a straight salary, hazard pay, or what? How do they figure out what to pay someone stranded in space for 9 months? I never thought I’d find out.
Then I saw an article titled “Rescued Astronauts: How Much Will They Get Paid For Their Ordeal”? According to it, they get paid what’s known as “incidental” pay when traveling, including traveling to space. It’s $5 a day on top of what their salary is. That’s an extra $1,430 each on top of their salaries which is between 150 and 200 thousand dollars. Also, no weekend or holiday pay while at the space station. That’s specifically pointed out.
$5 doesn’t sound like much, but their travel, lodging, and food expenses were covered. That sounds like me being sarcastic, but that’s literally listed for them as “they are on official travel orders as federal employees”.
I mean, they literally traveled something like a million miles, got to sleep under the stars every night, and ate all the dehydrated food they wanted for free. So, there’s that.