Sally Ride, the first woman astronaut dies of cancer at age 61.
I saw that headline and said "not another one".
Is it just me or does it seem like an unusuallly high percentage of astronauts get cancer at a relatively young age?
It couldn't have anything to do with riding around in a paper thin aluminium can with little protection from radiation, could it?
Or maybe this is just one of those things we're not supposed to talk about.
Here's some I found in a quick search:
Sally ride died at age 61
Jack Swigert age 51
Janice Voss age 55
Alan Shepard age 74
Deke Slayton age 69 (did not go into space)
G. David Low age 52
Charles Veach age 51
David Walker age 56
Frank Caldeiro age 51
That's 9 out of 41 who are deceased or about 22%. Sure seems high to me and most of em weren't that old.
OK now that the tin foil has is on secure, here's another surprising thing:
Heart attacks. these people are supposed to be incredibly fit, yet check out the ages of those who had heart attacks:
Donn Eisele age 57
Ronald Evans age 56
James Irwin age 61
Wally Schirra age 84 (OK that's old)
Karl Henize age 67
To keep it in perspective we lost 11 astronauts in the challenger and columbia accidents combined.
It sure looks like the average lifespan on an astronaut is not that long.
Dead U.S. Astronauts - Who's Alive and Who's Dead