Will There Ever Be A Time When No One Alive Has Walked On Another World?

The death of Neil Armstrong brought out a lot of emotions in me. I wasn't around when he took his first steps on the moon, but I was certainly aware of the magnitude of this achievement. To be able to look up to the moon and know that he and eleven others had walked there, on that sphere so far away, was captivating.

The death of the last frontiersman also instilled a thought in my head, though. No one has walked on the moon in nearly forty years. Some of you may remember this profound post made by Randall Munroe on xkcd:

With no plans in the near future to revisit the moon- and with Mars still a ways off- there may soon be a time when there will be no one alive who has walked on another planet or moon. It's a sad thing to think about.

When will that be, if it happens? I don't have the time to look up actuarial tables, so I used the average life expectancies for people with ages equal to the remaining astronauts (as can be found on Wolfram|Alpha). I took an extra liberty and assumed that, on average, each of them are within the top 10% of the population in terms of health (astronauts must be fit, and their habits likely continue into an older age). I did not do any research into their individual health conditions.

I also feel like getting someone on Mars is a matter of when, not if. NASA doesn't have any sort of formal timetable out on this project, but I've heard 2030 as a ballpark figure by multiple sources. My goal is to discover the odds of any of the astronauts surviving to 2030.

The results are promising on this front. By the time 2030 comes around three astronauts in particular- Eugene Cernan, Charles Duke, and Harrison Schmitt- will be younger than the lifespan for the top 10% of people their age. Taking all the astronauts together, the average chance that any one of them will survive until 2030 is about 7%. All things considered, I'd say the odds are good that someone will survive until we set foot on Mars. Anything past that 2030 date, however, and the odds go sharply down. All of the astronauts will be pushing 100 by then.

I don't feel great about looking at "death rates" because there's hardly anything statistical about it. It all depends on your lifestyle and past, and for these astronauts, I'm sure there's a long, bright future still ahead of them. I mean no disrespect to anyone, especially Neil Armstrong.

America needs a new frontiersman now, and I'm sure NASA is hard at work on it. You could say our Curiosity needs to be satisfied again. Let us move forward to Mars, while we look backwards with fond memories of our missions to the moon. RIP, Neil Armstrong.

My data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdGlLMzFNWm1RUWFaZHJ5ZllRVkQ4c2c

How do the Olympics Affect the Presidential Election?

The United States puts a lot of time and effort into sporting events. In the US, the Super Bowl is the most watched television program ever (and also the second, and the third...). Athletes are some of the highest-paid people on the planet. In 2007, around 19 million people participated in fantasy football leagues across the country.

It would stand to reason that sports have some sway over the decisions people in America make. The biggest decision of all occurs every four years: the presidential election- and coincidentally, the election happens about three months after the world's biggest sporting event: The Olympics.

The question I intend to answer today is how much impact the Olympics have over the presidential election. Do incumbents win reelection more often when the U.S. wins the most golds? Do they receive a boost when the U.S. successfully hosts the games?

To compile this data I again used the IOC's medal ranking tables that I used in my first Olympic post. The U.S. has "won" (had the most gold medals in) 15 out of 24 summer Olympics. I did not include the winter games, as the more recent ones have occurred in non-election years. I also did not include boycotted games, games that took place after the election (1956) or the 2012 London games.

The results may surprise you. Of the fifteen times the U.S. came in first in the standings, the incumbent party was reelected eight times, and a new party was elected seven times. Similarly, of the nine times the U.S. did not come in first in the standings, the incumbent party was reelected five times, and a new party was elected four times.

When the U.S. has hosted the Olympics, the results have been more favorable: the incumbent party has won three out of four times. On the other hand, when the Olympics were cancelled during World War I and II, the incumbent party won each time, proving that the U.S. at least cares more about the war effort than sports.

Then again, when we boycotted the 1980 Moscow games, incumbent president Jimmy Carter lost to Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of the Soviet Union, I identified nine Olympics when the U.S. had a clear rival- in politics and in the medal count: Germany in 1936, China in 2008, and the Soviet Union from 1952 to 1988. The U.S. won more gold medals than their rivals just three times out of nine- yet the voting public didn't seem to care. The six "losses"are split evenly between the incumbent party and a new party, and the incumbents actually lost more often than not when the U.S. defeated their rival.

So what does this mean? The U.S. isn't as in to sport as one may think. We'll have to use other, more efficient means of forecasting the upcoming presidential election.

My data: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdDcyV3kzWWVGaUVZcXRndnJ3M3MxMUE

How to Become an Olympic Host Country

Yesterday, we concluded that Olympic host countries have an advantage over other countries. They tend to score about three places higher on the medal tables over other years. Today, we'll look at how to become an Olympic host country; specifically, what factors in the most to the IOC's decision about who hosts Olympic games?

This is what the IOC has to say about the process:

"The IOC elects host cities following a two-stage process. Cities wishing to stage the Games in question become 'Applicant Cities'; the IOC Executive Board then selects a number of applicants to be considered 'Candidate Cities', from which one is chosen by a vote of the IOC session."

Obviously, a lot goes into this selection. There is no one factor that determines who gets to host the Olympics. Often, a city may be very well-qualified to host the games, but because several games have been hosted in the region recently, they will be rejected.

But if everything else was considered equal, is there something that can be considered a deciding factor?

I explored five independent factors: Population, Population Density, Size (Area), Human Development Index, and Gross Domestic Product (Total GDP). (Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments).

I searched each of these based on today's totals, not at the time the IOC awarded the Olympics. This might change the data slightly, but a good amount of countries (Belgium, Sweden) had relatively large development but not anymore, and a good amount of countries (Mexico, South Korea) had relatively small development but now are well-developed.

Based on today's statistics, here are the results:

Population, Area, Population Density
When the Olympics began around the turn of the century, many- but not all- the countries that hosted had high populations. The United States, France, Great Britain, Germany- all have large populations. And when you look at the data, it appears that a great amount of countries have high population, size, and area. However, there are many countries that also have a large size that have not hosted the games. India, Indonesia, and Brazil all have large populations and areas yet have not hosted an Olympics (Brazil, of course, will host 2016's summer games). Many African countries also have the same problem. Does it have to do with security? Or perhaps the lack of good facilities for athletes? Or maybe it's a matter of human development.

Human Development
It's understandable that the IOC would not want to shine a spotlight on countries that are not well-developed. An unstable country, such as Syria, over the seven-year period between a selection and the actual games, could spell disaster for the Olympics. While we can identify a more solid trend relating HDI to the Olympics, it's still not a very strong link. Mexico, Russia, and the countries making up the former country of Yugoslavia are not in the top tier of the HDI listing like most other Olympic hosts, and China does not even make the top 100. While many of the countries that host the Olympics do have very high Human Development Indices, it's not at all a solid trend (An r^2 value of 0.1). This leaves just one category:

Gross Domestic Product
The GDP of a country has the strongest identifiable link to hosting the Olympics. It's still not perfect, but it's much stronger than any other trend. What helps this variable the most is the United States. By far, the U.S. has the highest total GDP of any country and the U.S. has also hosted the most Olympic games. The trend isn't perfect, but it's much, much better than any other factor I can identify.

In the end, no one variable determines which country is awarded the Olympic games. But countries with a higher GDP have a much stronger chance. This is something to keep in mind, when, in 2013, the IOC makes their decision between Istanbul, Turkey; Madrid, Spain; and Tokyo, Japan, for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Apologies for the late post tonight; tomorrow we'll look at how the Olympics affect politics.

My data and graphs:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdFlxT3J5QW9vdmJsbFc5UkFnT0N2M3c

Does Being a Host Country Matter? - Olympics 2012

For the past two and a half weeks, Olympic fever has swept the globe. With the festivities over, I've been scouring some historical results of the Olympic games, looking for trends. In the next three days, I'll post three separate problems I examined and the conclusions that I drew from my research.

Today, we'll explore whether or not being a host country matters or not. Do countries win more medals than usual when they host?

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at what it takes to become a host country. What factors in the most to being selected to hold an Olympiad? (We're not counting bribery)

Wednesday, we'll examine Olympic and election results to determine if U.S. performance at the Olympic games influences the presidential election.

Before I begin today's post, I should make it clear that there is no real "winner" to the Olympics. The IOC makes a point of stating that it is an individual competition between individual athletes- not between countries. However, that doesn't stop them from releasing tables with the medal counts for each country- information for which was very helpful as I researched this topic.

If you look at the earliest few Olympics, it would make sense that being a host country greatly improves your performance level. The first five countries to host- Greece, France, the US, the UK, and Sweden- all won more medals than anyone else when they hosted. (The rankings are sorted by gold medals, however, so Greece and Sweden didn't actually "win" or come in first on the table).

There are reasons for this trend, however. These countries were athletic powerhouses during this time period first, and second, they didn't have to travel as far to compete. Keeping in mind the airplane was invented seven years after the first Olympics (and wasn't exactly ready for mass transportation at that point), travel was a major issue in the first few Olympics. Just look at the nationalities of athletes who competed in the 1904 St. Louis games:

Both the 1900 Paris and 1904 St. Louis Olympic games were notably low-quality, so for some strong evidence we need to move closer to today. However, the Soviet Union and United States dominated the Olympic games for many, many years. In fact, Germany, Canada, Norway, and China are the only countries to be ranked first besides the USSR and the US since the 1940s, and only China accomplished that in the summer games (Incidentally, this happened in the last summer Olympics, when China hosted).

On average, host countries place about fifth in the Olympics. But we can't really draw any conclusions from this, because some countries win all the time (the U.S. has won nearly 1/5 of all gold medals!), and some countries don't happen to do very well. Canada, for example, ranked 27th when it hosted the 1976 summer games with no gold medals- and it wasn't that big of a surprise. They'd ranked 27th in 1972, as well. So rather than look at the overall placement of host countries, let's see how they fared compared to the Olympics before and after.

Since 1960, only two countries- Italy in 2006, and Canada in 1988- have seen their ranking drop from the previous Olympics when hosting. In fact, on average, countries move up nearly three positions on the medal tables when they host. The trend is even more clear when we look at how countries fare after they host the Olympics. Host countries fall nearly five positions on the table in the next Olympics. This is astonishing because many countries have relative positions on the tables; that is, they win about the same amount of gold medals per year. (This average, however, is brought down by Greece, who fell 43 spots in 2008 after hosting in 2004. Yet even without Greece the average is over -3.5)

We can conclude that hosting an Olympic games certainly helps boost your chances of winning medals. Look at Japan, in the 1972 winter games. They won four medals, despite winning none in the 1968 or 1976 winter Olympics. And hosting the 1992 summer Olympics was enough to propel Spain 19 positions up the medal tables to sixth- only to fall seven places in 1996.

This is good news for Brazil- they host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and they may need a little help winning medals in front of the home audience: Brazil finished 22nd in London, winning just three golds.

For a full look at my data, go to this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnZrkjWWJajQdDNUbW5xX1pBN0RGdHVqN19IbDQ2V1E