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.
Quote from: jstrotha0975 on 09/29/2022 05:45 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.
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 09/30/2022 03:43 pmQuote from: jstrotha0975 on 09/29/2022 05:45 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-nmA 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/
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)
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.
We never landed on the moon, and everyone in NASA was in on it.
Google Manhattan Project.
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.
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.