The guy was a legend - flew fighter jets, was a test pilot, and then an astronaut. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt - I'm sure he knew exactly what he was doing.
And the obvious degradation of the body's capabilities and its potential failure points (potentially increased by traveling 300mph at 10,000 ft). Commenter is right, 90 year olds shouldn't be driving cars let alone flying. Incredibly irresponsible. Also there's really nothing that cool or heroic about dedicating your life to testing and operating flying death machines on behalf of a military. Get a grip.
If you follow your argument to a logical conclusion it would require that we ban millions of people with mild impairments from operating machines. That is the worst kind of ageism, discrimination, and ableism.
Imagine that you studied and went through pilot training and got your license. Do you really believe that when you start solo flying that you, an inexperienced pilot, would be a safer pilot than someone like Bill Anders at 90? Experience, guile, and cunning count for far more than you can imagine.
When my mother was getting older I looked at age related accident data. I apologize that I don't have the reference handy, but it was quite striking that teenagers are far more likely to have an accident than an elderly driver. I guess we should ban teenagers from driving also? Experience matters a great deal.
How about if we find that recent immigrants are more likely to have an accident due to lack of familiarity with local driving regs? According to your logic we should make a law banning immigrants from driving. And on and on...
As far as your comments about military service, even if we are anti-war (who isn't?), it is still possible to admire the hero who is willing to put their life on the line to defend their community.
Get outta here with this ageist crap. I've know several 90+ year olds who are fully capable of independence and driving. My grandma was one of them. Hell, I watched a 93 year old deadlift 450lbs. While the likelihood of some 90 year old being too old for something is high, that means less when looking at an individual.
And 10 to 12 year olds can drive too. I wonder why governments of developed countries ban them from driving outright. Most places don’t even let 14 to 15 year olds drive.
There is a difference between having something and then losing it vs not having it yet. If you get a license to do a thing you should be able to keep doing it until you are deemed incapable and that will vary between people.
Also, plenty of children those ages drive on private property, especially farms. There are kids doing backflip jumps on dirt bikes at those ages. Many of them are likely safer to be driving than others who are of "prime" age. I drove with a 30yo who terrified me with his dangerous lack of skill.
People are variable in capacity and skill. The bureaucracy finds it more manageable to put policy in place than to determine individual skill.
>There is a difference between having something and then losing it vs not having it yet.
I disagree. The reason for the policy would be the same.
Probability of person of age x causing collision is too high.
>The bureaucracy finds it more manageable to put policy in place than to determine individual skill.
Yes, of course. Testing every single person all the time can get costly, and it may or may not be deemed worthwhile by a society (or whatever government leader). Obviously, when people are young, their faculties are getting better, so testing once is not unreasonable.
But at advanced ages, faculties can degrade, and degrade at varying rates. For this scenario specifically, maybe it is not onerous to sufficiently test 90+ year olds that want to fly, since there are so few.
However, since an airplane crash in an urban area has a high likelihood of causing damage to others, society does have an interest in controlling who is in the pilot's seat.
Ageism is not inherently wrong. This also deals with a public space, where idealism and liberties are already restricted. If you make individual exceptions based on close examination, then fine. But I think it's fair for observers to assume that this individual flying was a mistake.
Using the same logic you might say that people shouldn't be allowed to drive until they are 24. Statistically far more lives would have been saved yesterday if we'd only simply restrict more liberties based on age alone.
Worth discussing! You might also suggest that driving tests should be harder/longer/repeated, specialized based on different types of driving, and license privileges restricted based on years/miles safely driven. We already do it to truck drivers. Remember, most societies have already crossed over into treating driving on public infrastructure as a privilege, not a right/liberty.
Idealistic thinking. Legends are just motivated people who are often at the right place, in the right time.
It was never my intention to take anything away from this legend of a human. I'm just trying to bring the discussion back down to earth. No harm, or pun, intended.
