{"id":35934,"date":"2018-06-06T01:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35934"},"modified":"2018-05-16T08:51:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T12:51:20","slug":"qotd-when-the-right-stuff-becomes-old-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/06\/06\/qotd-when-the-right-stuff-becomes-old-school\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: When the “Right Stuff” becomes “old school”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consider the popular conception of firefighters: brave, selfless, strong enough to haul an incapacitated person from a burning building.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, at a conference, I learned that many women were failing to qualify as firefighters, because they were coming up short on the strength test. What was so interesting, though, was that in practice, it turns out that one of the most important skills a firefighter needs is not so much the strength to drag an unconscious person from a building, but, far more commonly, the ability to coax someone who\u2019s in danger and is terrified to come with them. Apparently, many women turn out to be far more persuasive than men \u2013 highlighting the importance of selection based on real-world skills, rather than legacy stereotypes.<\/p>\n

Space flight offers another striking example of this phenomenon. In the context of a recent Tech Tonics podcast interview with Dorit Donoviel, director of the Biomedical Innovations Laboratory at the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, I had told Dr. Donoviel about my lifelong interest in astronomy and space, about launching Estes rockets and my love of the National Air and Space Museum and above all, about my affection for the heroism captured in the movie The Right Stuff<\/em>, an all-time favorite.<\/p>\n

In response, she laughed, and told me how \u201cold school\u201d that thinking was. When the space program started out, she explained, there was an exceptional degree of risk involved, and astronauts tended to be selected from the ranks of fighter pilots \u2013 because, in her words, they had \u201cthe skill sets and the cojones<\/em>.\u201d But today, she said, things are different \u2013 in large measure because the \u201cspace program is a lot safer than it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consequently, Donoviel explained, \u201cToday what we\u2019re looking for is less of the sort of alpha-male pilots, and more of the sort of scientists and engineers, geologists and earth scientists, folks who can work together in a cohesive manner in a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, she added, the astronaut of the future needs to be able to endure long periods of boredom and the prolonged lack of stimulation \u2013 in many ways, the opposite of high-adrenaline \u201cseat-of-the-pants flying\u201d that in some ways characterized the early astronaut missions.<\/p>\n

In space travel, as in firefighting, our notion of what constitutes the right skill set has evolved appreciably.<\/p>\n

David Shaywitz, “Evolving Notions Of The Right Stuff — In Spaceflight And In Medicine”, Forbes<\/em><\/a>, 2016-09-20.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consider the popular conception of firefighters: brave, selfless, strong enough to haul an incapacitated person from a burning building. A few years ago, at a conference, I learned that many women were failing to qualify as firefighters, because they were coming up short on the strength test. What was so interesting, though, was that in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,41,44,13],"tags":[69,43],"class_list":["post-35934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-quotations","category-space-science","category-usa","tag-nasa","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9lA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35935,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35934\/revisions\/35935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}