Re: The Warm Equations

On Wed, 26 Jun 2024 13:24:56 +1000, Mad Hamish
<newsunspammelaws@iinet.unspamme.net.au> wrote:

On Mon, 24 Jun 2024 11:43:45 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

Did you notice that the two astronauts that they sent up in the Boeing
Starliner are in their late 50s ?  In other words, two old people.

I object to calling people in their 50s old.

People in their 50s are middle-aged, not elderly, let alone senescent.

However, they are old enough that their capacity for vigorous physical
activity is likely to be somewhat diminished compared to that of an
individual in his or her 30s. This, of course, varies greatly between
individuals, as those who exercise regularly and maintain fitness
certainly can be in good shape in their 50s, even if by then those who
were largely sedentary will have lost much of the vigor of youth.

So, if your mental picture of an astronaut comes from the Mercury,
Gemini, and Apollo programs, so that when you think "astronaut" you
think "test pilot", well, 50 is kind of old for _that_. By the time
the Space Shuttle came along, though, a 50-year-old mission
specialist, as opposed to a 50-year-old pilot astronaut, would be no
big deal.

John Savard