had firm views on the criteria that should apply for membership of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) - and on the definition of an astronaut. He devoted a whole chapter (My Ultimate Peer Group) of his 1988 autobiography, Schirra's Space, to a discussion of the subject. He argued that aircraft personnel not piloting an aircraft are not aviators, and applied the strict criterion that anyone in space not in control of the flight of the spacecraft is not an astronaut:

Terminology