The elder spaceman

Usually, when scientists call a news conference, it’s to announce new results from a study. But when NASA calls one to talk about the space shuttle, chances are the topic won’t be results — it will be about unrealized plans. And, in the case of John Glenn, that’s probably a good thing. The US senator’s nostalgic return to space came 36 years after he became the first American to orbit the earth. The mission itself was the thrill. And reporters were left to consider how much of the science was mere window-dressing. After NASA announced in January that Glenn would fly on the shuttle, the first wave of stories gushed enthusiastically. On NBC’s Today Show, Glenn assured the host that the mission was all about science. “There are a lot of similarities between the natural process of aging here on Earth and what happens short-term to the younger astronauts up there in space,” Glenn said, noting changes in everything from the immune system to bone metabolism. Suddenly, the senator from Ohio was one of the most widely quoted authorities on the biology of aging. His home-town press even offered up some far-fetched rationales for aging research in space. “This is certainly no immediate problem,” said the Columbus Dispatch, “but if we ever want to send people to Pluto, the outermost planet, it’s at least a 24-year mission, roundtrip. A 35-year-old astronaut would come home pushing Social Security [pension].” Reporters and editors realized right away that this story was not really about the metabolic fate of 3-methyl-histidine in a 77 year-old male exposed to microgravity. Glenn is an inspiration to the senior citizenry and a living legend yearning for a last hurrah in space. Who could say no? Certainly not the NASA Administrator. Yet reporters still felt obliged to prod at the oft-repeated scientific justifications for the mission. Newsday charged off rather aggressively. It filed a Freedom of Information Act request that would oblige NASA to release the documentation that explained the agency’s rationale for sending a septuagenarian into orbit. NASA’s reply was: “a search was conducted and no documentation responsive to your request was located.”