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Agree with your post. Back in the late seventies, I was working with a company that was planning on using a small relaunchable craft to temporarily go up into LEO and retrieve satellites for repair or salvage, and once looked at the feasability of attempting to later on expand it to a one-man craft if our endeavours proved successful.

The federal government notified us that if we ever built such a craft then whoever we wished to send up with it would need to be a certified pilot and/or undergo astronaut training (at our expense) before we would be permitted.

In vain we argued them. Firstly because it would not be a true "aircraft" as it would have roughly the same "flying" capabilities of a large brick. Less, actually if it came down unpowered. Secondly, we would not be staying up there for any length of time since our mission would be solely to get up there and back as quickly as possible, so the demand for us to gain acceptance to and PAY FOR "astronaut" training along with the time required was a ridiculous limitation.

They flat out forbid us to proceed unless we complied with their requirements -and we had to notify them of any planned launches in advance and get their approval along with a permit, as well as submitting to pre- mission and post- mission Safety Inspections as well as random ones at their discretion.

I left before the program was too far along and never did find out how far they got...