That&#x27;s not surprising at all.  From an economic perspective, people choose jobs to maximize utility, salary being just one component of that.  They don&#x27;t have to pay them that much because being an astronaut is literally one of the coolest jobs ever.<p>In addition, the demand for astronauts is astronomically low :), so the supply of people wanting to do it is very high compared to demand.<p>Think about scuba diving instructors.  They don&#x27;t make that much money because it&#x27;s such an awesome job.  If I could make 150k a year doing that, I would quit my job in a heartbeat, move to Hawaii and never look back.  However, they don&#x27;t because if they started paying that much, a million other people would do the same, flooding the market with scuba instructors which would shift the salary back to what it is now.