/sci/ - Science & Math

Initially, the company hopes to fly 50 miles high or more. While that is short of the 100-kilometer, or 62-mile, “Karman line” that is often considered the edge of space, military and NASA pilots were awarded astronaut wings for reaching 50 miles or higher in the X-15 rocket plane. And many, including Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who keeps a list of all spaceflights, say that space begins at 50 miles.

“My plan is to count those people as astronauts and to include them on my list,” he said.

Virgin believes 50 miles qualifies as well.