Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash • Hacker News Board

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#191

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:41 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #186

lotsofpulp wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#192

Post by glenstein » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:44 PM UTC

nvy wrote: post #47

glenstein wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any more you can say about (1) how you know this and/or (2) whether there are reports or books that talk about this at all?

I doubt there are reports. Such is the nature of open secrets. Once they're reported in an official fashion they cease to be "secret" and regulators' hands are forced.

So you have no personal connection and no knowledge of any particular reports. That doesn't make you wrong, but surely you can understand how reading this and not knowing what you know, this raises every possible red flag for unsubstantiated internet speculation.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#193

Post by cooper_ganglia » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

tzfld wrote: post #110

bicx wrote: post #5

I saw the headline earlier, and my first thought was "I hope he was the pilot, because that would be a fitting way to go for a legend." Not only was he the pilot, but he was flying solo at 90 years old.

I hate this reasoning. Why is this a fitting way to die? What would be a fitting way to go for a cook or an athlete then?

Probably falling into an industrial sized fryer or getting a tennis racket wrapped around their neck, respectively.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#194

Post by throwup238 » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:49 PM UTC

pfannkuchen wrote: post #120

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers are such on-the-spectrum nitpickers. I guess that is what makes them good at their jobs and such unenjoyable cocktail party companions.

Is it even a nitpick in this case? It would have been substantially more badass to die flying a jet at 90. If it's relevant to the point I don't see how it's a nitpick. Now picking on a particular model distinction or something like that I could get on board with.

It depends on what you mean by “jet.” There’s no way he’d be allowed to fly a fighter jet or anything else with a turbojet engine at this point in his life. The medical waiver he was on wouldn’t allow it.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#195

Post by DennisP » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

kragen wrote: post #90

this graph took another step down today https://xkcd.com/893/ has anyone made an updated version?

I really like the popup text on that:

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#196

Post by jrootabega » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 1:59 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #177

TechDebtDevin wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#197

Post by sunir » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 2:10 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #169

lannisterstark wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was 90. You're reading too much into it. It's like when people get angry about a "Bless you."

Did I sound angry? I was just adressing the point that some people seem to value the circumstances of their death more, then the years before that. Wiliam Anders did what he wanted, fine by me, unless he actually was not fit to fly anymore (as this endangers other people), but no one had the guts to tell him that, being a national hero.

The expression is a social game to respond to death. It’s not real. We are not happy how he died. We are happy the way he lived. The game is to invert and mix the two. It’s a form of cognitive dissonance to manage our emotional response so it is positive not negative. You may not feel it yourself which is fine but appreciate that’s what others are doing. It’s not meant to be logical. It’s meant to be illogical.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#198

Post by xoxxala » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 2:23 PM UTC

Speaking about his famous Earthrise photograph, Anders said: "We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth."

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#199

Post by rizzom5000 » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 2:30 PM UTC

jrootabega wrote: post #196

sethammons wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders ID'd in WA plane crash

#200

Post by gcheong » Sat, Jun 08, 2024, 2:35 PM UTC

iamtheworstdev wrote: post #190

satisfice wrote: post #144

I once met Bill Anders on Orcas Island. Years ago I was making a video about describing a stone that I found on an Orcas beach, and I was consulting with geologists and biologists. I met at a local cafe with a marine biologist to get her opinion about barnacles on the stone. As we were talking, a man at the next table mentioned that he thought the stone was possibly volcanic. He also said he had a petrologist friend…

> I suspect his crash was a suicide. I wouldn't count on that. Most of us wouldn't do that to the aviation world. Decreases plane availability, especially for something like a T-34 Mentor, increases insurance rates, increases FAA stance on already asinine policies, etc. occams razor - he misjudged his aerobatics.

Unless you leave a note or tell someone, could the FAA determine it was intentional? Given the type of aircraft could a pilot plausibly commit suicide in a way that made it look like pilot error?