|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...0.html?cnn=yes I like this quote the best: Dr. Patricia Santy, a Michigan psychiatrist and former NASA flight surgeon on the Challenger mission said, "They hate doctors in general and psychiatrists/psychologists in particular because they cannot win in any interaction with them - at best they can only 'break even'." Well duh! At worst, the flight surgeon can declare them unfit to fly. At best, they declare them fit to fly, which to a driven individual like an astronaut, only means maintaining the status quo. It should come as no surprise that an astronaut would never willingly provide any information to the flight surgeon that might result in being declared unfit to fly. In other words, "Everything's fine doc!" Jeff -- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919) |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
On 9 Feb, 20:51, "Jeff Findley" wrote:
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTINhttp://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1587495,00.html?cnn=yes I like this quote the best: Dr. Patricia Santy, a Michigan psychiatrist and former NASA flight surgeon on the Challenger mission said, "They hate doctors in general and psychiatrists/psychologists in particular because they cannot win in any interaction with them - at best they can only 'break even'." Well duh! At worst, the flight surgeon can declare them unfit to fly. At best, they declare them fit to fly, which to a driven individual like an astronaut, only means maintaining the status quo. It should come as no surprise that an astronaut would never willingly provide any information to the flight surgeon that might result in being declared unfit to fly. In other words, "Everything's fine doc!" There is one other genuine issue and that is that Western society is hypocritical. There is a gap between how people ought to behave, how they do behave, and the best way to behave (in terms of mission success). Sex is for procreation but in ape societies (we are one despite what the fundamentalists say) it has great importance in terms of the cohestion of society. Let us suppose that the best way to get a cohesive Martian team (assuming we go there at all!) is for an eaual number of male and female astronauts to have sex (in the way in which south sea island cocieties operated). If you select crews ostensibly on a "finger in the air" basis you could get this right. As soon as you have a formal evaluation proceedure you will have to admit this. You can't not with all the fundamentalists around. It seems to be difficult enough to say that Mars and the Earth are the same age (4.55e9 years). - Ian Parker |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
On Feb 10, 8:30 am, "Ian Parker" wrote:
On 9 Feb, 20:51, "Jeff Findley" wrote: Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTINhttp://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1587495,00.html?cnn=yes I like this quote the best: Dr. Patricia Santy, a Michigan psychiatrist and former NASA flight surgeon on the Challenger mission said, "They hate doctors in general and psychiatrists/psychologists in particular because they cannot win in any interaction with them - at best they can only 'break even'." Well duh! At worst, the flight surgeon can declare them unfit to fly. At best, they declare them fit to fly, which to a driven individual like an astronaut, only means maintaining the status quo. It should come as no surprise that an astronaut would never willingly provide any information to the flight surgeon that might result in being declared unfit to fly. In other words, "Everything's fine doc!" There is one other genuine issue and that is that Western society is hypocritical. There is a gap between how people ought to behave, how they do behave, and the best way to behave (in terms of mission success). Sex is for procreation but in ape societies (we are one despite what the fundamentalists say) it has great importance in terms of the cohestion of society. Let us suppose that the best way to get a cohesive Martian team (assuming we go there at all!) is for an eaual number of male and female astronauts to have sex (in the way in which south sea island cocieties operated). If you select crews ostensibly on a "finger in the air" basis you could get this right. As soon as you have a formal evaluation proceedure you will have to admit this. You can't not with all the fundamentalists around. It seems to be difficult enough to say that Mars and the Earth are the same age (4.55e9 years). - Ian Parker- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Didn't "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Heinlein) take as one premise that the first manned Mars mission comes to grief over jealousy- sparked homicide, leaving Michael Valentine Smith an orphan to be raised by Martians? (Also IIRC: The next mission is described as having been conducted by a "drone" ship, and the manned mission that retrieves him is all-male.) It seems the ape mating game holds some dangers even for space programs as they are now. Perhaps the eventual workaround for long-duration mixed-gender team spaceflight will involve suppressing astronaut sex drive pharmaceutically in ways that provide compensatory mood-elevation benefits -- which probably would not be difficult, since SSRI antidepressants go a long way in that direction already, at least for the depressed. And you also satisfy the Fundies that way. (Little as I like satisfying the Fundies, they'll probably be around and making trouble for space programs two decades hence.) "Stranger in a Strange Land" predicted the waterbed and media-empire megachurches, according to its Wikipedia entry. Maybe we could give Heinlein partial credit for predicting this juicy bit of news as well? |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
Michael Turner wrote: Didn't "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Heinlein) take as one premise that the first manned Mars mission comes to grief over jealousy- sparked homicide, leaving Michael Valentine Smith an orphan to be raised by Martians? (Also IIRC: The next mission is described as having been conducted by a "drone" ship, and the manned mission that retrieves him is all-male.) Back in the 1960's NASA took one look at their astronauts psychological profiles (a lot of type A's) at the length of a Mars mission (around three years) and a all-male crew, and came to the conclusion that both violence and homosexuality would be the end result of that approach. So that might be pretty much a non-starter. :-D Pat |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
On 13 Feb, 14:00, Pat Flannery wrote:
Michael Turner wrote: Didn't "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Heinlein) take as one premise that the first manned Mars mission comes to grief over jealousy- sparked homicide, leaving Michael Valentine Smith an orphan to be raised by Martians? (Also IIRC: The next mission is described as having been conducted by a "drone" ship, and the manned mission that retrieves him is all-male.) Back in the 1960's NASA took one look at their astronauts psychological profiles (a lot of type A's) at the length of a Mars mission (around three years) and a all-male crew, and came to the conclusion that both violence and homosexuality would be the end result of that approach. So that might be pretty much a non-starter. :-D The Mars expedition will not be all male. - Ian Parker |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Why Astronauts Don't Like Shrinks By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN
In article .com,
Michael Turner wrote: Didn't "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Heinlein) take as one premise that the first manned Mars mission comes to grief over jealousy- sparked homicide, leaving Michael Valentine Smith an orphan to be raised by Martians? It was a bit more complicated than that -- evidently Heinlein's astronauts didn't practice proper contraception, so the adulterous affair produced a child, and I believe the mother died in childbirth (also not explained). What happened to the rest of the crew was likewise unclear. (Also IIRC: The next mission is described as having been conducted by a "drone" ship... With the note that another manned mission would probably have been sent shortly, had not a war intervened. and the manned mission that retrieves him is all-male.) The issue was moot for the second expedition as finally sent, because it used a magic space-drive that permitted a very short trip time. Bear in mind that SiaSL is *fiction*. Heinlein needed a human raised by Martians with no human contact at all, so he juggled the history to make this sort of work. It seems the ape mating game holds some dangers even for space programs as they are now. Oddly enough, the issue has not proved a big problem in Antarctica. This suggests that the "dangers" are like the fears that Mercury astronauts would be incapacitated by a few minutes in free fall -- speculative superstition, almost completely unrelated to reality. The mistake is to take the monsters under the bed seriously enough to go far out of your way to avoid them (as Mercury was forced to do, because of some influential kibitzers). -- spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Amazing, Hilary | Brendan Mcclellan | News | 0 | December 21st 05 10:59 PM |
Any Austin, Texas Amateur Astronomers here? | jojo | Astronomy Misc | 21 | September 28th 03 09:09 PM |
Any Austin, Texas Amateur Astronomers here? | jojo | Amateur Astronomy | 23 | September 28th 03 09:09 PM |
WILL SAO 257648 Ever be viewable from Austin? | Darrell | Misc | 7 | September 9th 03 07:56 AM |
AUSTIN, TX ? | Darrell | Misc | 2 | September 5th 03 04:18 PM |