My odd journey into astronaut deaths.

reply to post by Saint Exupery


While the Pilots you named were all selected as Astronauts, and all deserving of recognition.

They all died before ever having entered space.
So they fell outside of my search criteria.

reply to post by watchitburn


Yeah, that graphic really is misleading--ambiguous is a kind word for it. I kept reading it as meaning: "A total of 1130 humans have been in space; of which 522 are still alive and 608 have been cremated."

In fact, without the context provided by the posters in this thread I would not have taken it to have anything to do with sending cremated remains into space.

I find it interesting that your misreading of it sent you on such a fascinating journey. If you had understood its true meaning you wouldn't even have bothered. How weird is that?

S&F....

reply to post by watchitburn

According to the National safety Counsel, there is a 1 in 7,178 chance of dying in an incident involving aircraft. But if you are an astronaut you have a 371% better chance of being killed in an aircraft accident. I thought that was pretty interesting

to quote your source :

The odds of dying are statistical averages over the whole U.S. population. They do not necessarily reflect the chances of death for a particular person from a particular external cause. Any individual's odds of dying from various external causes are affected by the activities in which they participate, where they live and drive, what kind of work they do, and other factors.

why do you find it interesting ? - i consider it to be quite normal - as an example - subsitute astronaut with " airline flight crew "

reply to post by ignorant_ape


It's interesting, because a good number have died in plane crashes outside of doing Astronaut stuff.

I'm no mathematician but it seems disproportionate to me.

reply to post by Ex_CT2


Ha ha yeah,

My brain just would not process that. It was like something stuck in my tooth I couldn't get out.
But it ended up a fun learning experience.
And some great links have been brought up by other members. I think it was definitely worth it.

It's been a long time since I've read an entire thread (altough only two pages now) let alone responded to it. You're thread reminds me of the ATS I so fondly remember (and I thought I was just getting burned out.) Could this actually be a true conspiracy?

Your work also rerminds me of the work that one of our prestigeous members 'Zorgon' does, the more information you gather, the more questions you have. Look up his profile if you are not familar with him. The information that you've gathered combined with his, would be an awesome collection.

Keep up the thought provoking, contraversial subjects.

I'm looking forward to how this thread unravels and your future endeavors. S&F to you sir and thank you

-geo

This thread follows on, in a good way, from the thread I started a while ago;
www.abovetopsecret.com...
It is a fascinating subject, especially if you think that, if resources and knowledge had been 'pooled' instead of all the secrecy, ssome of the astronauts that died might still be alive today.

Originally posted by Ex_CT2
reply to post by watchitburn

 

Yeah, that graphic really is misleading--ambiguous is a kind word for it. I kept reading it as meaning: "A total of 1130 humans have been in space; of which 522 are still alive and 608 have been cremated."

In fact, without the context provided by the posters in this thread I would not have taken it to have anything to do with sending cremated remains into space.

I find it interesting that your misreading of it sent you on such a fascinating journey. If you had understood its true meaning you wouldn't even have bothered. How weird is that?

S&F....

Perhaps my coffee and electronic cigarettes didn't kick in yet but I don't see how Watchitburn misread the caption, or failed to understand it's true meaning.

I find it still odd as hell that out of all dead astronauts that so many were cremated-- whether their remains were sent into space or not. In my mind, most people don't choose to get cremated. Even if "A total of 1130 humans have been in space; of which 522 are still alive and 608 have been cremated." is true, that's still very odd.

reply to post by royspeed


Thank you Royspeed, I must've missed your thread. I apologize.

I wanted to tell the OP of that incident, but for the life of me I couldn't recall any facts of it that I'd be able to stand behind.

reply to post by geo1066


Wow, thank you.
I'm not sure if this is up to par with some of the awesome threads that have been posted on this site. But I will certainly have to work extra hard now to live up to expectations. I am familiar with Zorgon, I will need to look into some of his threads.

Thanks again.

reply to post by royspeed


Thanks for posting that.

There is a lot of good information in that thread.
Great stuff.

Just take a look at this. She is an Indian American astronaut.


www.rediff.com...


But I posted in other thread too about this. It says she was born again where she reveals the shuttle was hit by a huge ice rock!

ibnlive.in.com...

I was just doing some more looking into this.
And I came across the Manned Orbital Laboratory. Or MOL.

Apparently its was to be used during the Cold War for all kinds of Military Operations.

American manned space station. Cancelled 1969. MOL (Manned Orbiting Laboratory) was the US Air Force's manned space project after Dynasoar was cancelled, until it in turn was cancelled in 1969. The earth orbit station used a helium-oxygen atmosphere.

The crew rode the station to orbit and returned to earth aboard a Gemini-B capsule that was part of the station - no rendezvous or docking was required. Experiments planned ranged the gamut from military reconnaissance using large optical cameras and side-looking radar, through interception and inspection of satellites, to exploring the usefulness of man in space and test of Manned Maneuvering Units.

Now, this was back in the 60's. But it was cancelled in 69 before the first mission ever took place. Allegedly because it was determined that unmanned satellites could perform the same missions just as effectively as manned mission.

This is just speculation on my part, and I don't know about anyone else. But it seems likely that it was scrapped to be replaced by some more useful project. I mean there was still 20+ years of Cold War remaining. Is it such a stretch to think there were other military missions being conducted.
They had the means.
They had initiative.
Why wouldn't they? I see no reason to think they didn't have men in orbit. If for no other reason than to prove to the Russians that they could put secret manned missions in space.

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
...I find it still odd as hell that out of all dead astronauts that so many were cremated-- whether their remains were sent into space or not. In my mind, most people don't choose to get cremated. Even if "A total of 1130 humans have been in space; of which 522 are still alive and 608 have been cremated." is true, that's still very odd.

What you are saying is still possibly confusing some people.


Here is what that graphic meant:

522 people went into space while they were still alive.

608 people who had died (NOT necessarily people who were astronauts, nor who had EVER been in space while alive) paid to have a portion of their cremated remains launched into space. James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek) and Dr. Timothy Leary (of '___' fame) are two examples. Doohan and Leary are among 608 people who have had a portion of their cremated remains shot into space.

With prices starting at an affordable $995 (U.S.), you too could arrange to have your ashes or that of a loved one shot into space (shot into orbit for $4,995, or sent into deep space for $12,500).

www.celestis.com...

Mods:
I hope you don't consider the above link an "advertisement". I'm linking it for informational purposes, and I think the link is relevant to my post in that respect.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
...I find it still odd as hell that out of all dead astronauts that so many were cremated-- whether their remains were sent into space or not. In my mind, most people don't choose to get cremated. Even if "A total of 1130 humans have been in space; of which 522 are still alive and 608 have been cremated." is true, that's still very odd.

What you are saying is still possibly confusing some people.


Here is what that graphic meant:

522 people went into space while they were still alive.

608 people who had died (NOT necessarily people who were astronauts, nor who had EVER been in space while alive) paid to have a portion of their cremated remains launched into space. James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek) and Dr. Timothy Leary (of '___' fame) are two examples. Doohan and Leary are among 608 people who have had a portion of their cremated remains shot into space.

With prices starting at an affordable $995 (U.S.), you too could arrange to have your ashes or that of a loved one shot into space (shot into orbit for $4,995, or sent into deep space for $12,500).

www.celestis.com...

Mods:
I hope you don't consider the above link an "advertisement". I'm linking it for informational purposes, and I think the link is relevant to my post in that respect.

edit on 10/1/2012 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

Yes, finally someone else who understands.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

I see where you are coming from.

But at the time, having ashes sent into space, did not even register as a blip on my radar. I don't know why, maybe I'm just an idiot. I can draw that conclusion now. But I couldn't then. I still think they could have been a little more clear.
But it is what it is, I had fun.

Thanks for coming out of the shadows to participate.

Originally posted by watchitburn
reply to post by ignorant_ape

 

It's interesting, because a good number have died in plane crashes outside of doing Astronaut stuff.

I'm no mathematician but it seems disproportionate to me.

I'm not sure what you mean by "outside of doing astronaut stuff", but a few died in training aircraft and a few have died from cancer.

It's obvious that the training aircraft deaths were in fact "astronaut stuff", but it may be less obvious that a few of those cancer deaths may have a direct correlation to the time they spent in space, where they are not as protected from cosmic radiation as they would have been on earth.

...or are you saying that they have a higher statistical chance of dying in mundane ways (car accidents, falling down stairs, etc)? If you are saying that, then can you show me the statistics that indicate this?

It is interesting that many of the early astronauts were "born risk takers". Many of these people were test pilots for a reason, and they became astronauts for the same reason -- because they were risk-takers. Many of the original astronauts liked fast cars and fast motorcycles. That type of person may be more apt to die in car or motorcycle accidents.

These days, however, more and more astronauts are academics and engineers -- although the ability to be able to take more risks (since space travel is inherently risky) is probably still a part of the psyche of many astronauts.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I guess my definition of "astronaut stuff" is not the same as yours or NASA's. I should have been more specific, for that I apologize.
I did not count training accidents because those were not missions to space or to achieve orbit. Not to discount those individual's achievements, but that's just the way I look at it.

I suspect you are probably right about the risk taking behavior. Thanks for pointing that out.

reply to post by watchitburn


Well, the astronauts who died in the T-38 airplane crashes during training certainly did die due to being astronauts.

If those people were say, for example, school teachers or accountants, there is a greater chance they would have lived longer lives. So the fact that they were astronauts, and did the dangerous things that astronauts do (even while training) certainly contributed to their early demise.

And as I indicated in my post above, I think some (although probably not all) of the astronauts who developed cancer later in life could have that cancer attributed to their time spent in space, where the cosmic radiation increased their chances of later developing cancer.

Anything that can contribute to conspiracy is welcome, fine job of research.
OK now did Germany go to Mars in a secret space ship and never come back.
Could we say space radiation ended that trip to Mars.

Well what about these 500 people or so, might their causes of death if by cancer
be caused by outer space radiation. UV is very powerful but there must be much
more NASA does not tell us about. Not using the super secret space ships is
a disappointment but not telling about high speed particles in another.