Rowing and space travel have never been complete strangers; in fact, Capt Alan B. Shepard, the first American to reach outer space and the fifth person to walk on the moon, rowed at Navy. More recently, however, after NASA adopted rowing as a crucial training modality for astronauts who would spend expended periods of time in space, several astronauts became rowing fans.
Thus when they were hurtling around the planet, a few of them started picking out race courses and pointing high sensitivity, long-range cameras at them. What they found shocked the ranks of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians in the program. One spoke to row2k on condition of anonymity about the view of our sport from space.
"My 10-year-old knows the difference between a rectangle and a trapezoid and a simple quadrilateral, but the brain trust of Cambridge MA doesn't seem to be able to do the same when it comes to the rowing course - which is directly out front of MIT for crying out loud!" she exclaimed.
The astronaut reminded his audience that Shepard was an oarsman, and that he had raced on many of the same courses - in the 1940s.
"These courses were surveyed using chalk paint and plumb lines," he said. "If we used that in our work now, or even in the 50s and 60s, we would have landed our spacecrafts on Halley's Comet."
What about courses with turns and staggers?
"Ah, that one is easy, and no math needed " she said. "Just watch the host coach's face when you do the lane draw. You will know all you need to know."