4.06 What is Aging?

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

John Glenn, born in 1921, was seventy-seven years old when he completed a ten-day research mission in orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery in the fall of 1998. This was not Glenn's first venture into space. Thirty-two years earlier, the longtime Democratic U.S. senator from Ohio was the first American astronaut in space, when he completed three orbits around the earth as part of America's fledgling space program. The purpose of Glenn's 1998 trip was to study the effects of aging in the weightless environment of space. Glenn, who exercises daily and lifts weights, is in excellent shape. As expressed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) administrator Daniel Goldin, Glenn was "poised to show the world that senior citizens have the right stuff."

In 2010, nearly 50 million Americans were age sixty-two or older, including some five million over the age of eighty-five (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2011). Growing old can be a fulfilling and rewarding experience, or it can be filled with physical impairment, psychological distress, and social isolation. For most older Americans, the experience of aging lies somewhere in between.