AVIATION can teach health care a lot. Both fields depend upon skilled professionals who are responsible for the lives of their customers. Markets, relatively unfettered by laws and regulations, determine the numbers and kinds of pilots. The numbers and kinds of health care workers, however, are heavily influenced by political processes. The ways that pilots and health care professionals are trained and licensed accounts for much of the disparity. On July 20, 82-year-old Wally Funk rode into space atop Blue Originâs New Shepard rocket. If American politicians had more foresight in 1961, Funk might have been the first woman in space. In training tests, Funk supposedly outperformed all seven men chosen for the Mercury programâincluding Alan Shepard, for whom her rocket was named.