7 ms·

That leaves seven Apollo astronauts still alive, the youngest of whom are 88. I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again

by I-M-S 3y ago

That leaves seven Apollo astronauts still alive, the youngest of whom are 88. I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again.

jjice 3y ago
I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they were picked partially for health, but seven with the youngest being 88 is a great lifespan for them.
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  There were once 24 of them, and by definition they were old enough to be astronauts 52 years ago. [0] suggests that for a 36 year old now the median age of death is 76; I don't see a spread but it shouldn't be surprising to see 1/3 outlast that by 12 years. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Retric 3y ago
There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon reasonably soon. Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 IMO 80% chance it happens within 6 years and 95% chance they actually land on the moon successfully. Without a firm date it’s hard to have a specific plan, but it may be worth actually going and seeing that launch.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled. Artemis has failed to meet a single deadline since its inception, and has cost more than all public and private investment into SpaceX for the last 20 years combined. We are paying more for a single (disposable) SLS engine than the cost of an entire Falcon 9 launch. The whole thing is a farce.
  - glimshe 3y ago
    Cost overruns are a staple of government-led programs. Also, the government has very deep pockets (and plenty of credit) and should be able to deal with the costs as long as it remains a priority in our image competition with China.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things.
      - nordsieck 3y ago
        >Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things. I'd be more sympathetic if SLS had more new technology. They're using actual engines that previously flew on Shuttles. And sure - there's a few changes - the SRBs have 5 segments, there's new insulation, etc. But nothing that should have caused the expense and delay that we're seeing. Heck - the cost overruns and delays with the mobile launch platforms ML-1 and ML-2 are absurd and there's absolutely nothing new there - they're just steel towers with piping.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - stevenjgarner 3y ago
    My initial response is of course to agree with you. But then I reflect on how impossible it would have been for SpaceX to succeed without the support of NASA (and other agencies). NASA is a political organization consisting of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. together with 10 field centers [1]. While this unnecessary scattering and distribution of effort is itself a reflection of pork barrel spending, it has been what has been necessary to galvanize the support of constituent American representatives to approve the relatively meager NASA budget. Similarly the Artemis program is the very compromise those ever-changing representatives and administrations can agree on, together with its cost plus method of budgeting, to keep jobs in districts and re-election coffers full. I remind myself I need to embrace that rather than be cynical about it. Democracy is hard. I'm at a point now where I realize how essential the Artemis program is to the ongoing support for SpaceX by NASA. The program will change a LOT more based on both every success SpaceX has with Starship and any further ongoing failure of Boeing (please no!). IMO I feel we need to wish NASA, SpaceX (and Blue Origin) and yes even Boeing the very best or something even better. I am awed at the political deftness with which NASA is transitioning away from cost plus and has engaged the private sector. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/hq/nasa-center-assignments-by-state/ https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/hq/nasa-center-a...
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  Artemis has a higher risk of being cancelled or fundamentally restructured than delays.
- mhaberl 3y ago
  >> I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again. > There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon Chance that a 88 year old male will live 6 more years is about 27% according to the tables [1] So, a chance that at least one of those 7 lives 6 more years is about 89% (a bit less because some are older than 88), but that is the ballpark figure I would call that more than a good chance :) [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
  - vijayr02 3y ago
    Now adjust for the fact that these are all ex astronauts, so will probably be fitter than the average 88 year old? Is there data for life expectancy given astronaut?
    - WXLCKNO 3y ago
      Top comment says there's 7 astronauts still alive the youngest being 88? That's all already way beyond the norm I think.
      - keybored 3y ago
        Literal survivorship bias. There were 24 originally and this was more than 50 years ago.
        inglor_cz 3y ago
        Astronauts in the 1960s were required to be perfectly healthy before their mission, not even minor anomalies in bloodwork etc. were tolerated. No surprise that a third of the moonwalkers is still alive at approximately 90. Nowadays the tolerance is somewhat bigger.
        keybored 3y ago
        Fine point which has nothing to do with my comment.
- Eliezer 3y ago
  Prediction markets seem to think 2028. https://manifold.markets/plsdelete/when-will-humans-set-foot-on-the-mo?r=RWxpZXplcll1ZGtvd3NreQ https://manifold.markets/plsdelete/when-will-humans-set-foot...
- dagoodnews 3y ago
  > There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon reasonably soon. Yes. And SpaceX was supposed to fly the japanese entrepreneur around the moon in 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-moon-announcement-elon-musk-reveals-bfr-moon-mission-passenger-yusaku-maezawa-2018-09-18/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-moon-announcement-elon-m... Considering that just a fly-by to the moon is being delayed, I'd imagine that actually landing men on the moon is going to be delayed as well.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  PRC's planning on 2030: https://spacenews.com/china-sets-sights-on-crewed-lunar-landing-before-2030/ https://spacenews.com/china-sets-sights-on-crewed-lunar-land...
nkoren 3y ago
The requisite XKCD: https://xkcd.com/893/ https://xkcd.com/893/
- londons_explore 3y ago
  So if I'm reading that right, we're well above the 95th percentile...
  - InitialLastName 3y ago
    There are only 4 alive who have walked on the moon, so right about at the 95th percentile.
- samstave 3y ago
  Do these things just come to him in his dreams? Maybe his Fiance who passed is sending him info beyond the grave... Never fails to impress... However, would you think the term "another world" == the Moon? Isnt the Moon intrinsically a part of this world? Another Globe would be more accurate.
  - natebc 3y ago
    FWIW his fiancee was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, they married a few months later and AFAICT is still on a Lane(1) going forward. 1) https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/931:_Lanes https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/931:_Lanes
    - saalweachter 3y ago
      At the very least, we have https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2386:_Ten_Years https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2386:_Ten_Years
  - cgriswald 3y ago
    I don’t believe I have seen anyone use “world” to also include the Moon. Do you have an example? Generally moons are not considered part of the same “world” as their planets: “All these worlds are yours except Europa.”
japhyr 3y ago
For anyone interested in the story of the astronauts who went to the moon, Moondust is a great read. In the early 2000s (if I remember right), the author traveled around the world to visit each of the living men who had set foot on the moon. He asks them about their experiences, both on the moon and in the time since the moon missions ended. Some of them treat him like any interviewer, but toward the end as they realize he has actually connected all of their stories once again, they share a bit more than what comes out in typical interviews. It's a wonderful blending of life in the world at that time, the story of our collective quest to reach the moon, and the individual stories of humans who actually went there. https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth/dp/0062906690/ https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth/dp/006...
- philomath_mn 3y ago
  Great recommendation!
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  I read that one and it was excellent. The author talks also about the times, the era of the moon landings — and he had an interesting aside in the book that stuck with me about Elvis Presley (of all people): ---- snip ---- Always Elvis-sceptic, I once asked the photographer Alfred Wertheimer, one of the last to be allowed real access to the singer, why the girls in the crowd were crying—whether the tears were part of an act. He told me: “Well, I think it was the fact that we’d been through this rigid Eisenhower era. Everything was cutsie-pie crinoline skirts and ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’; the girls knew their place and they weren’t women’s libbers yet; everything was very tightly organized. Then along comes a guy like Elvis ... he’d go onstage into a darkened auditorium, where there would be maybe 4,000 people — mostly young ladies, a few boys and then a few police, who were there just to make sure nothing ‘dirty’ was happening. From the very start, Elvis is focused on the girls and they’re in love with his hair and the way he curls his lip. And he talks to them and then he begins to sing and he lets it all hang out. His hair, which was immaculate, starts coming down and the sweat comes down—and do you think he stops to mop his brow or sweep his hair back up? No. He gets down on his knees, then gets back up: he is so revealing, so unconscious of his own body movements that all of a sudden the girls look at each other, after all the years of holding everything in, and they cry. “They’re not putting it on the way you’d see girls doing in later years: they’re not screaming or jumping up and down, just holding each other and crying.” ---- snip ----
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by I-M-S 3y ago

That leaves seven Apollo astronauts still alive, the youngest of whom are 88. I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again.

jjice 3y ago

I guess I shouldn't be surprised since they were picked partially for health, but seven with the youngest being 88 is a great lifespan for them.

InitialLastName 3y ago
There were once 24 of them, and by definition they were old enough to be astronauts 52 years ago. [0] suggests that for a 36 year old now the median age of death is 76; I don't see a spread but it shouldn't be surprising to see 1/3 outlast that by 12 years. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

Retric 3y ago

There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon reasonably soon. Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_3 IMO 80% chance it happens within 6 years and 95% chance they actually land on the moon successfully. Without a firm date it’s hard to have a specific plan, but it may be worth actually going and seeing that launch.

ramesh31 3y ago
>Artemus 3 is scheduled for September 2026, that can clearly slip but a 2.5 year deadline suggests it is unlikely to slip that far or get canceled. Artemis has failed to meet a single deadline since its inception, and has cost more than all public and private investment into SpaceX for the last 20 years combined. We are paying more for a single (disposable) SLS engine than the cost of an entire Falcon 9 launch. The whole thing is a farce.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Cost overruns are a staple of government-led programs. Also, the government has very deep pockets (and plenty of credit) and should be able to deal with the costs as long as it remains a priority in our image competition with China.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things.
    - nordsieck 3y ago
      >Cost and schedule overruns are a staple of developing new technology and complex systems. It's very difficult to estimate time and budget for those things. I'd be more sympathetic if SLS had more new technology. They're using actual engines that previously flew on Shuttles. And sure - there's a few changes - the SRBs have 5 segments, there's new insulation, etc. But nothing that should have caused the expense and delay that we're seeing. Heck - the cost overruns and delays with the mobile launch platforms ML-1 and ML-2 are absurd and there's absolutely nothing new there - they're just steel towers with piping.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- stevenjgarner 3y ago
  My initial response is of course to agree with you. But then I reflect on how impossible it would have been for SpaceX to succeed without the support of NASA (and other agencies). NASA is a political organization consisting of its headquarters in Washington, D.C. together with 10 field centers [1]. While this unnecessary scattering and distribution of effort is itself a reflection of pork barrel spending, it has been what has been necessary to galvanize the support of constituent American representatives to approve the relatively meager NASA budget. Similarly the Artemis program is the very compromise those ever-changing representatives and administrations can agree on, together with its cost plus method of budgeting, to keep jobs in districts and re-election coffers full. I remind myself I need to embrace that rather than be cynical about it. Democracy is hard. I'm at a point now where I realize how essential the Artemis program is to the ongoing support for SpaceX by NASA. The program will change a LOT more based on both every success SpaceX has with Starship and any further ongoing failure of Boeing (please no!). IMO I feel we need to wish NASA, SpaceX (and Blue Origin) and yes even Boeing the very best or something even better. I am awed at the political deftness with which NASA is transitioning away from cost plus and has engaged the private sector. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/hq/nasa-center-assignments-by-state/ https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/hq/nasa-center-a...
Dalewyn 3y ago
Artemis has a higher risk of being cancelled or fundamentally restructured than delays.
mhaberl 3y ago
>> I'm not sure how likely it is that any of them will see humans walk the Moon again. > There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon Chance that a 88 year old male will live 6 more years is about 27% according to the tables [1] So, a chance that at least one of those 7 lives 6 more years is about 89% (a bit less because some are older than 88), but that is the ballpark figure I would call that more than a good chance :) [1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
- vijayr02 3y ago
  Now adjust for the fact that these are all ex astronauts, so will probably be fitter than the average 88 year old? Is there data for life expectancy given astronaut?
  - WXLCKNO 3y ago
    Top comment says there's 7 astronauts still alive the youngest being 88? That's all already way beyond the norm I think.
    - keybored 3y ago
      Literal survivorship bias. There were 24 originally and this was more than 50 years ago.
      - inglor_cz 3y ago
        Astronauts in the 1960s were required to be perfectly healthy before their mission, not even minor anomalies in bloodwork etc. were tolerated. No surprise that a third of the moonwalkers is still alive at approximately 90. Nowadays the tolerance is somewhat bigger.
        keybored 3y ago
        Fine point which has nothing to do with my comment.
Eliezer 3y ago
Prediction markets seem to think 2028. https://manifold.markets/plsdelete/when-will-humans-set-foot-on-the-mo?r=RWxpZXplcll1ZGtvd3NreQ https://manifold.markets/plsdelete/when-will-humans-set-foot...
dagoodnews 3y ago
> There’s a good chance some or all 7 will see people walk on the moon reasonably soon. Yes. And SpaceX was supposed to fly the japanese entrepreneur around the moon in 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-moon-announcement-elon-musk-reveals-bfr-moon-mission-passenger-yusaku-maezawa-2018-09-18/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-moon-announcement-elon-m... Considering that just a fly-by to the moon is being delayed, I'd imagine that actually landing men on the moon is going to be delayed as well.
bigbillheck 3y ago
PRC's planning on 2030: https://spacenews.com/china-sets-sights-on-crewed-lunar-landing-before-2030/ https://spacenews.com/china-sets-sights-on-crewed-lunar-land...

nkoren 3y ago

The requisite XKCD: https://xkcd.com/893/ https://xkcd.com/893/

londons_explore 3y ago
So if I'm reading that right, we're well above the 95th percentile...
- InitialLastName 3y ago
  There are only 4 alive who have walked on the moon, so right about at the 95th percentile.
samstave 3y ago
Do these things just come to him in his dreams? Maybe his Fiance who passed is sending him info beyond the grave... Never fails to impress... However, would you think the term "another world" == the Moon? Isnt the Moon intrinsically a part of this world? Another Globe would be more accurate.
- natebc 3y ago
  FWIW his fiancee was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, they married a few months later and AFAICT is still on a Lane(1) going forward. 1) https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/931:_Lanes https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/931:_Lanes
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    At the very least, we have https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2386:_Ten_Years https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2386:_Ten_Years
- cgriswald 3y ago
  I don’t believe I have seen anyone use “world” to also include the Moon. Do you have an example? Generally moons are not considered part of the same “world” as their planets: “All these worlds are yours except Europa.”

japhyr 3y ago

For anyone interested in the story of the astronauts who went to the moon, Moondust is a great read. In the early 2000s (if I remember right), the author traveled around the world to visit each of the living men who had set foot on the moon. He asks them about their experiences, both on the moon and in the time since the moon missions ended. Some of them treat him like any interviewer, but toward the end as they realize he has actually connected all of their stories once again, they share a bit more than what comes out in typical interviews. It's a wonderful blending of life in the world at that time, the story of our collective quest to reach the moon, and the individual stories of humans who actually went there. https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth/dp/0062906690/ https://www.amazon.com/Moondust-Search-Men-Fell-Earth/dp/006...

philomath_mn 3y ago
Great recommendation!
JKCalhoun 3y ago
I read that one and it was excellent. The author talks also about the times, the era of the moon landings — and he had an interesting aside in the book that stuck with me about Elvis Presley (of all people): ---- snip ---- Always Elvis-sceptic, I once asked the photographer Alfred Wertheimer, one of the last to be allowed real access to the singer, why the girls in the crowd were crying—whether the tears were part of an act. He told me: “Well, I think it was the fact that we’d been through this rigid Eisenhower era. Everything was cutsie-pie crinoline skirts and ‘How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?’; the girls knew their place and they weren’t women’s libbers yet; everything was very tightly organized. Then along comes a guy like Elvis ... he’d go onstage into a darkened auditorium, where there would be maybe 4,000 people — mostly young ladies, a few boys and then a few police, who were there just to make sure nothing ‘dirty’ was happening. From the very start, Elvis is focused on the girls and they’re in love with his hair and the way he curls his lip. And he talks to them and then he begins to sing and he lets it all hang out. His hair, which was immaculate, starts coming down and the sweat comes down—and do you think he stops to mop his brow or sweep his hair back up? No. He gets down on his knees, then gets back up: he is so revealing, so unconscious of his own body movements that all of a sudden the girls look at each other, after all the years of holding everything in, and they cry. “They’re not putting it on the way you’d see girls doing in later years: they’re not screaming or jumping up and down, just holding each other and crying.” ---- snip ----

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]