Re:Relativistic Spaceship
by denton-scratch on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @05:48AM
(#39272937)
> 10-20% of current astronauts would be willing to sign up.
Astronauts seem to me to have a higher propensity for kookiness than the general population. You may be right.
Yes. There's currently way more people who want to be astronauts, than people who can be astronauts. So you get some extreme selection effects; and those tend to bring out weird people.
Re:Relativistic Spaceship
by denton-scratch on Wednesday February 07, 2024 @04:27AM
(#39286397)
I was really thinking of astronauts who have actually been to space; I wonder whether the experience disposes people to kookiness. I suspect that trainee/aspiring astronauts might suppress their kookiness.
(Btw, I share your intuition that the number of people willing to sign up for a one-way trip to the stars, or even just Mars, is fairly low. However, if you already look at people who are dedicated enough to become astronauts, I suspect the additional filter of asking for one-way-trip volunteers for a mission to the stars isn't all that severe. My purely speculative guess is that at least 10-20% of current astronauts would be willing to sign up.)