• Question: would you ever consider sending younger people (teenagers) to space?

    Asked by 902trn28 to Tom, COLFlight, Jon, Beth, Anne on 11 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Tom Morse

      Tom Morse answered on 11 Oct 2015:

      Hi 902trn28,

      I think this is an excellent idea – you may be onto something!

      Tom

    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 12 Oct 2015:

      Simon: Hi 902trn28!

      Currently career astronauts tend to be in their late 30’s through to early 60’s. This is driven by the traditional astronaut selection process which focuses on experienced test pilots, engineers and scientists and the fact that missions are essentially scientific expeditions similar to those conducted in Antartica (like Beth).

      However in the future if space stations and planetary bases on the Moon and Mars become cheap enough and robust enough to support large communities of humans I think it is very possible that teenagers will also fly in space with their astronaut parents, although many of these are likely to be “natives of their environment” meaning they were already born in space or the Moon or Mars.

      What do you think?

      In any case one of my favourite science fiction films is about a bunch of teenagers that blast off into space by accident and how they survive: SPACE CAMP

      A bit old but still alot of fun. Have you seen it?

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 14 Oct 2015:

      Hi 902trn28!

      I think it would be great to have younger people going to space because it would be really interesting to see if younger astronauts respond in the same way to the space environment. From a physiological point of view I would imagine there would be lot’s of new things we could learn from doing this.

      Are you volunteering?!?! 😉

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