Women as astronauts -- past, present, and future

See
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...#uslPageReturn
for the opinion piece, and join the discussion!!

From Jim Oberg:
Seehttp://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2007-05-09-mercury-13_N.htm?csp=...
for the opinion piece, and join the discussion!!

Important questions being asked here. And great stats:
-----
As of 2005, 36 of the 154 NASA astronauts, almost a quarter, were
women. Pamela Melroy is scheduled to command a space shuttle flight in
the fall. In the military, 690 of the fixed-wing pilots and 795 of the
helicopter pilots are women - only 2.5% and 3.8% respectively.
Meanwhile, of the 141,900 pilots flying for U.S. commercial airlines,
5,008, or 3.5%, are women.
-----

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack? Or perhaps
more when you hear other drivers complain how Danica has a competitive
advantage for being smaller and lighter.

I blame it on Bratz dolls!


~ CT

But at least the Thunderbirds have upped the pilot ratio to one-third!


~ CT

"Jim Oberg" wrote:

Now we need one in the Blue Angels (hell of a way to get a vacancy, but there should be
several qualified female Hornet drivers who could try out).

Stuf4 wrote:

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack?

Why?

--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Stuf4 wrote:

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack?

Why?


Arguably it should reflect to some extent the makeup of the population at
large.

But with such small numbers, it's hard to say how realistic that is.


--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".



--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Stuf4 wrote:

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack?

Why?

Arguably it should reflect to some extent the makeup of the population at
large.

Why?

No amount of pretending that women and men are identical will make the
Y chromosome go away. One thing it **seems** to code for is both over-
*and* under-achievement. Here in the UK, men get more first-class
degrees [1]. They also get more third-class degrees. You cannot
describe the former as "a problem" (and plenty of politicos will
describe it as such) without acknowledging the latter.

Put it another way, if there's a field where men and women have an
identical mean level of achievement then men have a higher standard
deviation. If you then select for the tail (either tail) you get a
higher proportion of men. Hence more male astronauts, top-level
racing drivers, blah blah blah. Also more men in prison.


[1] UK degree results are basically 1st class, 2.1 (or "upper second")
2.2, or 3rd class, 1st being the best. There's a bit more to it
than that in some situations but it's not worth going into...

--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".

On Fri, 11 May 2007 22:37:29 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Greg D.
Moore \(Strider\)" made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Stuf4 wrote:

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack?

Why?


Arguably it should reflect to some extent the makeup of the population at
large.

Nonsense.

On what basis?

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

"Mary Pegg" wrote in message
...
Stuf4 wrote:

It's like analyzing why having three chicks racing Indy this year is a
big deal. Shouldn't it be closer to half of the pack?

Why?

Arguably it should reflect to some extent the makeup of the population
at
large.

Why?

No amount of pretending that women and men are identical will make the
Y chromosome go away. One thing it **seems** to code for is both over-
*and* under-achievement. Here in the UK, men get more first-class
degrees [1]. They also get more third-class degrees. You cannot
describe the former as "a problem" (and plenty of politicos will
describe it as such) without acknowledging the latter.

Put it another way, if there's a field where men and women have an
identical mean level of achievement then men have a higher standard
deviation. If you then select for the tail (either tail) you get a
higher proportion of men. Hence more male astronauts, top-level
racing drivers, blah blah blah. Also more men in prison.


Statistics are all fine and well, but from an abstract view the sexes
differ in the sense that they compliment each other. Natural selection
wouldn't allow anything else for long. Any narrow test of ability may
swing to one sex or the other. But a thorough or complete examination
of the differences should yield a tie.

And in nature, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the two
complimentary components are always weaker alone, then when
acting together. Chosing one or the other should always be
the poorer or biased choice.






[1] UK degree results are basically 1st class, 2.1 (or "upper second")
2.2, or 3rd class, 1st being the best. There's a bit more to it
than that in some situations but it's not worth going into...








--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".

Jonathan wrote:

Put it another way, if there's a field where men and women have an
identical mean level of achievement then men have a higher standard
deviation. If you then select for the tail (either tail) you get a
higher proportion of men. Hence more male astronauts, top-level
racing drivers, blah blah blah. Also more men in prison.

Statistics are all fine and well,

What on earth - or off it - does that mean?

--
"Checking identity papers is a complete waste of time. If anyone can
be counted on to have valid papers, it will be the terrorists".