04. When Apollo 14 landed on the Moon, 40 years ago this week, mission commander Alan Shepard was the oldest astronaut to have flown in space. In order to fulfill his dream of walking on the Moon, 47-year-old Shepard had to fend off criticism of his age and overcome a health condition which had dogged his career. While age poses no particular barrier to being an astronaut today, in the early days of human space flight, officials were unsure what influence the ageing process might have on performance during a mission. Shepard died in 1998 of leukaemia. But in a 1991 interview, he recalled the questions over his age: “We got all kinds of flak from the guys. In the first place, I hadn’t flown anything since 1961, and here it was 10 years later, and the two guys with me had not flown before at all, so they called us the three rookies. We had to put up with that. And then the fact that everybody said: ‘That old man shouldn’t be up there on the Moon.’ As if it wasn’t enough of a challenge as it was, but that was part of the make-up of all those guys. They are still a pretty competitive group.” 4) It was previously believed that...

Question

04. When Apollo 14 landed on the Moon, 40 years ago this week, mission commander Alan Shepard was the oldest astronaut to have flown in space. In order to fulfill his dream of walking on the Moon, 47-year-old Shepard had to fend off criticism of his age and overcome a health condition which had dogged his career. While age poses no particular barrier to being an astronaut today, in the early days of human space flight, officials were unsure what influence the ageing process might have on performance during a mission.                                       Shepard died in 1998 of leukaemia. But in a 1991 interview, he recalled the questions over his age: “We got all kinds of flak from the guys. In the first place, I hadn’t flown anything since 1961, and here it was 10 years later, and the two guys with me had not flown before at all, so they called us the three rookies. We had to put up with that. And then the fact that everybody said: ‘That old man shouldn’t be up there on the Moon.’ As if it wasn’t enough of a challenge as it was, but that was part of the make-up of all those guys. They are still a pretty competitive group.”	4) It was previously believed that...

Accepted Answer

One’s age could affect one’s work in Space

Answer

Space flight could precipitate illness

Answer

Age didn’t affect one’s ability to carry out a Space mission

Answer

Space flight was too dangerous for the inexperienced

Crowdly

04. When Apollo 14 landed on the Moon, 40 years ago this week, mission commander...

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