Point taken. Slayton probably holds the record for all who went through government agencies and trained for an orbital-class mission.

I wouldn't count her since the Mercury 13 were never selected as astronauts.

Thing is, the “Mercury 13” weren’t officially selected for anything.

Well, people usually make the argument that corporations will become the governments of the future as a way of saying that we'll become more awful because people are awful and profit is awful, and we're just going to get more awful, lol.

But governments are just corporations that have a monopoly on violence, and so they're able to collect revenue without producing anything. So I don't know that corporations who chase profits are all that much worse than the corporations that don't.

But one thing that all cooperatives within social species share is a common goal, government, corporation, or otherwise. And what we've seen with humans, and what would be seen in any successful species, are more and more efficient ways of accomplishing their shared goals.

The most pragmatic ways to solve problems are always going to win out. And what we know is that cooperation is always the most pragmatic solution. Simply put, many hands make light work.

The actual reason we've seen so much violence and exploitation throughout history isn't because we're just naturally bastards, it's because we hadn't yet developed the technologies or knowledge needed to build an infrastructure that could utilize cooperation in a more efficient way than we could with violence and exploitation.

Violence and exploitation were simply a more effective way of accomplishing our goals. But as knowledge and technology advance, we become less violent and less exploitative. This isn't because we're becoming kinder and gentler, but because cooperation is becoming more effective as technology and knowledge increase.

It only stands to reason that any species that are capable of interstellar travel will have achieved it by having better utilized cooperation, and will therefore be far more likely to seek out cooperation with other species they come in contact with than violence. Because even more hands mean even lighter work.

That one was correct. Although someone suggested Wally Funk, and I think she’s the true holder of the record

60 years. Wally Funk was one of the Mercury 13 and was selected in 1961. The M13 were women who underwent testing and training, but this was not an official NASA program. She flew on the first New Shepard flight in 2021.

Good point. But the resource on another comment says Deke was selected for Mercury in 1959. If that's correct, that puts him at 16 years.

I didn’t even know those were on Wikipedia, thank you very much

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I’m looking at his Google results and I see 1975 for the ASTP flight, so 13 years. However, I think Jeanette Epps has him beat, because she was selected in 2009 but will make her first flight next year, leaving a gap of 15 years.

I'm on a mobile interface so I can't do this now, but perhaps contrasting these two lists will help (both via Wikipedia) :

1. List of astronauts by year of selection.

2. List of astronauts by first flight.

Probably Deke Slayton. He was selected for the Mecury Project in 1962 but was grounded due to an atrial fibrillation until a flight in 1975 on the Apollo-Soyuz project.

Is common sense the best way to approach the uncommon? Generally speaking, novel problems require novel solutions that are developed with novel approaches.

I haven't, but I'll put it on my list for the library. Thanks.

The real question is why would they allow themselves to be seen? Any information they would get from observing us would presumably be less valuable, or at least potentially less valuable, when we know that we're being observed.

I'm not talking about nations either. Nations wont be exploring the spaceways, the cooperations will. Call me naive or ignorant or whatever but I 100% believe that once humanity gets off Earth we will behave exactly like like every ither space film about invading aliens l(independence day, mars attacks, avatar. Whoever has the biggest canons will take what they want from who or what ever they find.

And those are more easily obtainable from asteroids, where planetary geology hasn't dispersed them, and you don't have to contend with a massive gravity well.

There isn't anything that you can get from a planet with life that you can't get elsewhere without expending the resources to go there in the first place. Except for life itself. It's actually far more likely that other species would be infinitely more valuable as a source of study than for any material resources.

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No I wish I was born earlier (born in 89). I feel like I missed the best years of the 60s, 70s and 80s. I hate what technology has done to our world. I hate how overcrowded everything is. Maybe we peaked in 2000 and it’s been downhill ever since.

I think you're failing to see the changes made in how nations behave toward one another. The trend has been away from colonization and exploitation of weaker nations and tribes, particularly since WW2. If we project that trend forward, by the time we're capable of interstellar travel, we'll likely have adopted a total non-interference mandate.

And it makes sense for a species capable of advanced technology to evolve in this direction. In order to develop technology, a species has to be pro-social and cooperative. Sharing the workload is essential, it would be impossible for any individual, or even a species that prefers isolated tribalism, to develop interstellar travel.

True, but I doubt that would stop any one person or corporation that had enough money.

Easier for a space faring species to get those from asteroids and comets than from a planet.

They're just being friendly.

I wasn't comparing I was just saying that if humanity found a world with a primitive society we would take it. No comparing of ideologies involved.

I always knew I was ahead of my time