Author Topic: FACTUAL Pet Peeves  (Read 17589 times)

Offline p51

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #20 on: 09/29/2022 05:41 pm »
Some of the more insane ones I still hear from random people:
1. There's a recording of Challenger's crew screaming on the way down. We all know that's insane. Even if they all had O2 on the fall, there was clearly no electrical connections to record or transmit anything.
2. Challenger's crew didn't die at all, and they just took on new identifies. I don't even have the words as to how offensive and ridiculous I find this.
3. Gold visors were on the Apollo suits so if they encountered an alien on the Moon, that alien wouldn't understand there was a person in there or how to get to them. Seriously, I still hear this from people!
4. NASA is going to land people to the Moon or Mars in the next couple of years. No, they're not. We all know people aren't going to walk on the Moon anytime soon.
5. NASA is only going to the Moon eventually so they can say they've landed a woman or 'person of color' there and no other reason. I hear this a lot because NASA is indeed using this for PR copy that they're going to do so. I keep telling people that the Apollo astronauts were all white men because the vast majority of people in the US who were qualified to go to the Moon were in that demographic. But that is clearly (and thankfully) no longer the case. But it's silly to think NASA is going to the Moon just to have someone other than a white man to step onto the surface!
But most of all:
We never landed on the moon, and everyone in NASA was in on it. Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret, especially when many were laid off after 1972, never to work in the field again? And not one deathbed confession or tell-all book to put their kids/grandkids through college? Please...
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Offline jstrotha0975

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #21 on: 09/29/2022 05:45 pm »
Some of the more insane ones I still hear from random people:
1. There's a recording of Challenger's crew screaming on the way down. We all know that's insane. Even if they all had O2 on the fall, there was clearly no electrical connections to record or transmit anything.
2. Challenger's crew didn't die at all, and they just took on new identifies. I don't even have the words as to how offensive and ridiculous I find this.
3. Gold visors were on the Apollo suits so if they encountered an alien on the Moon, that alien wouldn't understand there was a person in there or how to get to them. Seriously, I still hear this from people!
4. NASA is going to land people to the Moon or Mars in the next couple of years. No, they're not. We all know people aren't going to walk on the Moon anytime soon.
5. NASA is only going to the Moon eventually so they can say they've landed a woman or 'person of color' there and no other reason. I hear this a lot because NASA is indeed using this for PR copy that they're going to do so. I keep telling people that the Apollo astronauts were all white men because the vast majority of people in the US who were qualified to go to the Moon were in that demographic. But that is clearly (and thankfully) no longer the case. But it's silly to think NASA is going to the Moon just to have someone other than a white man to step onto the surface!
But most of all:
We never landed on the moon, and everyone in NASA was in on it. Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret, especially when many were laid off after 1972, never to work in the field again? And not one deathbed confession or tell-all book to put their kids/grandkids through college? Please...

"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.

Online edzieba

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #22 on: 09/30/2022 07:34 am »
"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.
Where secrecy was imperfect (multiple leaks, and a general contemporary understanding that Los Alamos existed, and was working on new weaponry, likely a new type of bomb, under Oppenheimer) even when aided by wartime press (who were actively unwilling to break secrecy), the entire organisation was designed from the outset for information compartmentalisation, and the secret was revealed within 6 years.
None of those apply to Apollo.
It would also require active complicity from the Soviet Union (and every subsequent Soviet and Russian regime) in keeping up the charade, against their own self-interest.
« Last Edit: 09/30/2022 07:35 am by edzieba »

Online laszlo

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #23 on: 09/30/2022 10:58 am »
"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.

When I do I find Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, Davis Greenglass, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, George Koval and Theodore Hall.

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #24 on: 09/30/2022 03:43 pm »

"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.
The staff of "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine noticed in 1942 that a large number of their subscribers had moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee, Los Alamos New Mexico, and Hanford Washington. The staff met and decided to keep their mouths shut.

Offline markbike528cbx

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #25 on: 10/01/2022 10:55 pm »

"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.
The staff of "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine noticed in 1942 that a large number of their subscribers had moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee, Los Alamos New Mexico, and Hanford Washington. The staff met and decided to keep their mouths shut.
Reference?
The Los Alamos address was PO BOX 1663, Santa Fe so multiple subscribers to one address probably was a flag.  Depending on who the subscribers were, the staff also might have raised eyebrows at high-end scientists sharing an address.

“The site was so secret that one mailbox, PO Box 1663, served as the mailing address for the entire town.”
 https://www.atomicheritage.org/location/los-alamos-nm

A fact that I find astounding is that the B-17 Day’s Pay was actually sent to Europe with Hanford Engineer Works on the nose.
https://tricities.wsu.edu/sept-28-29-son-of-days-pay-bomber-pilot-to-present-airplane-history-turn-over-artifacts-to-wsu-tri-cities/

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #26 on: 10/01/2022 11:11 pm »

"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.
The staff of "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine noticed in 1942 that a large number of their subscribers had moved to Oak Ridge Tennessee, Los Alamos New Mexico, and Hanford Washington. The staff met and decided to keep their mouths shut.
Reference?
The Los Alamos address was PO BOX 1663, Santa Fe so multiple subscribers to one address probably was a flag.  Depending on who the subscribers were, the staff also might have raised eyebrows at high-end scientists sharing an address.

“The site was so secret that one mailbox, PO Box 1663, served as the mailing address for the entire town.”
 https://www.atomicheritage.org/location/los-alamos-nm

A fact that I find astounding is that the B-17 Day’s Pay was actually sent to Europe with Hanford Engineer Works on the nose.
https://tricities.wsu.edu/sept-28-29-son-of-days-pay-bomber-pilot-to-present-airplane-history-turn-over-artifacts-to-wsu-tri-cities/
I first heard the story when I was in high school (Oak Ridge High School, class of '67) but I later read it in one of the histories of golden-era science fiction, possibly "The Way the Future Was", but it was a looong time ago.

Offline Jodie Peeler

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #27 on: 10/02/2022 12:48 pm »
That USS John F. Kennedy was to have been Apollo 11 prime recovery ship, but the Nixon White House blocked it for political reasons and directed that (the presumably lesser) USS Hornet be selected instead. There were numerous operational reasons why this would have been a bad idea (including having to divert a valuable supercarrier from the Atlantic Fleet to the Pacific Fleet for a one-off mission). Meanwhile, Hornet was already in the Pacific Fleet, could take the PRS role without disrupting Pacific Fleet operations, and was generally better suited for the role in a lot of ways (as Bob Fish outlines in the book Hornet Plus Three). Every time that rumor gets repeated (often with no hard evidence offered to support it), it irritates me and it's also an insult to CVS-12 and crew, who did an exemplary job on a historic deployment.

Jodie Peeler

Offline libra

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #28 on: 10/02/2022 01:40 pm »
Never heard about that stupid thing before. What a load of horse manure, indeed (although it spoke volume about Nixon atrocious reputation !)
JFK was a very recent supercarrier with plenty of important missions. Hornet was an old Essex with a much less demanding schedule. They often picked smaller carrier or Iwo Jima class LPH for recovery missions.

Offline JoeFromRIUSA

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #29 on: 10/02/2022 09:00 pm »

 There are no downloadable pdf files of the Bellcomm Inc reports from the 1960s and 1970s online.
 Terse, arrogant posts from some NASA Spaceflight posters.


Offline p51

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #30 on: 10/04/2022 02:10 am »
"Have you ever met any 400,000 people who could keep a secret". Google Manhattan Project.
That's just silly. Lots of people outside of the loop, including the press, knew what was going on there. Are you suggesting they read minds?
And those folks only had to keep mum until the first time the Japanese empire saw the first mushroom cloud in their country, even if they'd managed to keep the secret.
Here we are over 50 years later and if there'd been a conspiracy that large, you actually think all those people who got laid off would have kept quiet?
That is where the Moon conspiracy wheels come off...
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Offline JAFO

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #31 on: 10/04/2022 05:31 am »
How many people have worked at Groom Lake over the years in whatever capacity, all the way from boomers refueling black projects to security guards who looked up and saw.... WTF was that?   (swamp gas)
Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.
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Offline libra

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #32 on: 10/04/2022 06:34 am »
How many people have worked at Groom Lake over the years in whatever capacity, all the way from boomers refueling black projects to security guards who looked up and saw.... WTF was that?   (swamp gas)

 A swamp gas explosion that got reflected by planet Venus LMAO 

Offline Kaputnik

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #33 on: 10/04/2022 10:59 am »
I think my pet peeve is when people assert that humans cannot survive the journey to Mars because it will take too long. Or that they will somehow be incapacitated after landing, because of too many months in microgravity.
We've been flying people in to space on similar length missions since the 80s. It'll be fine.

(Inspired by learning of the recent passing of Valery Polyakov)
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Offline DaveJ576

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #34 on: 10/04/2022 12:40 pm »
The use of 20-something actors to portray experienced astronauts, and then overcompensating by using the old trope of bringing in the wizened old geezer because his/her experience is the only way to solve the problem.
"We have a pitch and a roll program and man this baby is really going!"

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #35 on: 10/04/2022 01:06 pm »
Even the Geoid is not an oblate spheroid, due to variable density. Whichever description you pick (point mass, sphere, oblate spheroid, jumpy sphere, Geoid, actual surface coordinate point-map, etc) is progressively 'less wrong' depending on the scale you are using and the effects you are looking for.

Picky, picky, picky.  That's why the term "flat earth" is so appealing.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #36 on: 10/04/2022 01:10 pm »

We never landed on the moon, and everyone in NASA was in on it.

As I am fond ofrelating, the biggest challenge NASA faced was launching a 3000 mile diameter soundstage and getting it to orbit the Earth.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JohnFornaro

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #37 on: 10/04/2022 01:12 pm »
Google Manhattan Project.

Google Klaus Fuchs.  The Russians knew about the design of the atomic bomb almost as fast as we did.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Online edzieba

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Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #38 on: 10/04/2022 01:27 pm »
I think my pet peeve is when people assert that humans cannot survive the journey to Mars because it will take too long. Or that they will somehow be incapacitated after landing, because of too many months in microgravity.
We've been flying people in to space on similar length missions since the 80s. It'll be fine.
Then I guess my pet peeve is seeing a few steps taken immediately after landing and concluding there are no fitness or medical issues.

Offline AmigaClone

Re: FACTUAL Pet Peeves
« Reply #39 on: 10/04/2022 01:39 pm »
As a reader (and sometimes reviewer) of science fiction, here are things I see (even in current SF) that annoy me. I should add that most writers get this right, but it astonishes me that anyone who messes these things up can actually get his/her stuff published/filmed.

1) Calling a solar system a "galaxy." E.g. "The next galaxy only had six planets, and they were all too far from the star."

2) Thinking that a planet's gravity ends at some altitude and that spaceships that get too close can get "trapped."

3) Closely related is the idea that a vehicle has to keep firing its rockets or else it'll fall out of orbit. "If we can't get the engines back on, we'll spiral into the sun!" (I'm not counting cases where this is because of atmospheric drag.)

4) The idea that the solar system is one-dimensional. When something goes from Earth to Jupiter, it does not have to pass close to Mars. (This afflicts SF movies much more than it does written SF.)

5) The notion that things move really fast through the solar system. E.g. "Astronomers just spotted an asteroid that's going to hit the Earth. It's just beyond the orbit of Saturn, so it'll hit the Earth in six days."

6) Closely tied to that is the idea that we can't detect anything until it's right on top of us--no matter how big it is. "Astronomers just spotted an asteroid half the size of the moon. It's just one million miles away and on a collision course!"

Again, these days, I think most SF writers either get their stuff right or else avoid mentioning details that would be hard for them to figure out. Movies, not so much.

My personal Pet Peeve in science fiction is 'sub-light' engines that can traverse several light-years in a matter of months (from the point of view of someone outside the spacecraft).

Another Pet Peeve in science fiction is the sheer number of 'humanoid' or 'near humanoid' alien species. I realize in live action movies at least historically that was a limitation due to only having human actors, but that is not an excuse for novels or animations.

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