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The label of world's oldest spaceman sat uncomfortably with John Glenn. He insisted that he was simply another astronaut in the service of science, conducting experiments aboard the shuttle Discovery. But last week, before returning to Earth, a relaxed Glenn began to embrace what is likely to be his mission's most lasting legacy: a redefinition of our image of aging. The nation's No. 1 role model for seniority made jokes ("I can have my Tang mixed with either Geritol or Metamucil") and even dispensed a bit of advice about not accepting a dull life (don't "live by the calendar") in old age.

In a rapidly graying society, Americans are quick to celebrate heroes who defy stereotypes about aging: Glenn going up in space at 77, George Bush parachuting from an airplane at 72. We even made bestselling authors out of the Beardstown Ladies (average age: 70), until it was revealed that their investment returns were only mediocre. Why were we so eager to assume a bunch of novices could pick stocks better than a Wall Street pro? Because we want to believe that growing old is not as bad as we fear.

Elder supermen. Many who work with the elderly are reconsidering this adulation of senior overachievers. "John Glenn has taken us from our fear of aging to a fear of not being John Glenn in old age," says Martha Holstein of Chicago's Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics. It's one thing, she says, to knock down stereotypes that mark the elderly as enfeebled or befuddled. But raising unrealistic standards of vigor isn't any better. Historian Theodore Roszak notes that along with the celebration of Glenn have come paroxysms of press about 90-year-old marathon runners and other aged mega-athletes. These "supermen images," says Roszak, author of America the Wise, a new book about how the swelling ranks of the elderly will benefit America, give rise to the dangerous notion that "seniors need to achieve at the level of 30- or 40-year-olds" to win respect.

Gerontologists talk about "productive aging," the notion that one's 60s and 70s constitute a new middle age as people live longer and healthier lives. Productive aging, with its roots in the social movements of the 1960s, began as a counter to prejudice against the elderly. But such well-intentioned efforts to bring new value to old age sometimes gloss over the fact that older hearts, lungs, ears, and eyes do start to wear out. Forty percent of Americans over age 65 have some chronic condition that limits such simple everyday activities as walking around the block or lifting a bag of groceries.

One leading proponent of productive aging wants to use what we know about how proper exercise and diet can forestall illness and physical decline to encourage Americans to maintain healthier lifestyles. John Rowe of Mount Sinai-New York University Medical Center, coauthor of the new book Successful Aging, advocates an incentive program, in which Medicare would pay a larger share of medical costs for individuals who quit smoking, drink moderately, or lose weight. That, he says, would "enhance the well-being of older people" and also cut the bill for Medicare.

Others worry about creating ideals that the white, wealthy, and educated are most likely to live up to. The poor, minorities, and often women have the worst health in late life. A recent study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that the death rate among the poorest Americans is three times that of others of the same age–but not because they lead significantly less healthy lives. Rather, says Meredith Minkler of the University of California–Berkeley, poverty has "weathering" or cumulative effects. A woman who spends her life on her feet as a waitress or in some other physically demanding job–and then maybe also cares for her grandchildren–winds up in worse health than someone whose white-collar job lets her pay for membership in a health club.

In reality, old age means to live with both vigor and limits. Barbara Toomer made that clear last week as she joined protesters in Washington who handcuffed their wheelchairs together at the doors of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to demand funding to live in their own homes. "We hear how marvelous it is for John Glenn to be in such great shape," says the 69-year-old Utah activist with American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today, "but we're down here fighting to get everybody out of nursing homes, which is where you're likely to get placed when you get old."