Real world factual errors

[Buran]

Beware space buffs bearing useless facts.

I mentioned this in passing in another section of the forum, but here goes, in the "goofs" forum.

In Deep Wizardry, Nita, her parents, and Kit visit the landing site of Apollo 16 to show her parents what wizards can do.

He pointed past the abandoned first-stage platform of the LEM Orion at the first Lunar Rover ...

Even the actual first LRV (lunar roving vehicle) carried to the Moon would not have been the first built, due to engineering and training replicas which were used to prepare for the flights that carried LRVs (some are in museums today) -- but the LRV carried on Apollo 16 is not even the first to make it to the Moon!

The last three missions in the Apollo program were "J" missions, designed for longer surface stays and expanded science programs when compared to the first four (counting Apollo 13, which never landed). One of these changes was the addition of a powered electric vehicle, the LRV, to the flight manifest. This was carried, folded, in a bay of the LM descent stage, and unfolded by the astronauts after landing.

Those last three missions were Apollo 15, 16, and 17. That means that the Apollo 16 rover was the second to reach the Moon.

There is also a terminology change sharp-eyed readers might notice. The book's text says "LEM" and I say "LM" -- the E stands for Excursion, which was dropped relatively late in the vehicle's development. Both are correct, though the flight vehicles don't include the E.

Post tenebras spero lucem - after dark I wish for light
(CC) This post has been closed-captioned for the hearing-impaired.

[wizFAN]

Wow--and I thought I was a space freak!! What did you do, spend your life studying moon landings? If so I think you are a troubled child.

But then, so am I.

Perry, the dementified

I am a troubled child too. Right now, I'm studying the Atlantis legend and geometrical constructions.-for fun

[wizFAN]

The Atlantis part of that actually sounds interesting.

Jupitarian Perry-the-odd

[bassethoundbeagle]

I studied the Mercury space program for a couple months, for the fun of it. It's really quite interesting...

************************

[meteorite]

One of the things I hope to nab eventually from my family's memorabilia is a picture of my great-uncle Benny standing with a group of other engineers in front of a Redstone rocket. The person 2 to his left is Werner von Braun. Great uncle Benny helped design the gantry tower. Space history is neat.

ohhhhhhhhhhhh, i know so much about[LIST]
<LI>atlantis
<LI>apollo13
<LI>useless trivia
i am amazed i have a life

i'm the queen of insanity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i wonder if i have a life just reading and typing on my comp?

In Death there is Life and in Life there is Death.
-kd

[Arienne James]

I don't feel insane anymore
A couple months ago I started learning about the ISS, space shuttle program, and I'm still working on the Apollo program. It was really funny, because in this film we watched about Apollo 11, John Glenn landed on the moon.

[Buran]

Originally posted by wizFAN:
Wow--and I thought I was a space freak!! What did you do, spend your life studying moon landings?

Wayyyyyyy belated response (lost my password and have been busy elsewhere!):

I'm a space buff. Hardcore. Have been for 20 of my 30 years in this life. This sort of thing is small-fry for me. Saying that Apollo 16 had the first LRV is going to jump out of the page at me as if it were printed in fuscia and trumpets blared as my eyes scanned past the text.

John Glenn never made it to the Moon, but he did fly aboard the space shuttle Discovery and is the oldest human to ever fly in space to this date.

[Caitlin]

Who's a hubble nerd? Caitlin's a hubble nerd!

I am so obseesed with the Hubble and its pictures- I have them on all of my binders for school. People are amazed by them- they're oh so very pretty.

Has anybody else be totally entranced by the Cygnus Loop? Not only does it look awesome, but the stroy about how it formed, man, whoo.

[Buran]

Certainly; I'm a space buff. What would you like to know about the HST? I'm hoping that Griffin (NASA administrator) will reverse all the stupidity of his predecessor and get astronauts up there to fix it.

It's certainly not unsafe and has been done many times before on a vehicle that has flown exactly that type of flight many times before and was designed to do exactly that job.

[Gryphon]

Yup, Buran is cool. XD *huggles* Personally, I'd never be an astronaut, and the whole outerspace thing doesn't interest me at all, but that doesn't matter.

Side thought: Some people talk about all that's out there and how our day to day problems are so trivial compared to the greatness of the entire universe, but that won't stop me; what matters is what effects me, and unless some aliens from halfway across the universe come to stop by, I don't care. XD

[Buran]

Aww, thanks. But I do wonder -- why don't you care? Would you vote against spaceflight, particularly manned spaceflight? If so, why? Consider that less than 1% of the federal budget goes to supporting space exploration and far more is wasted on useless "pork" snuck into various bills.

I highly recommend Failure Is Not An Option 2: Beyond The Moon if you can catch a rebroadcast; the History Channel aired it earlier this month. It discusses the history of the US space program, how it's a shadow of what it once was, but why those who worked on it and those of us who believe in it feel it's still important.

And isn't that 1% worth it? Maybe even 2%? So much more than killing people in some distant land who never asked for us to be there in the first place ...

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by Gryphon:
Side thought: Some people talk about all that's out there and how our day to day problems are so trivial compared to the greatness of the entire universe, but that won't stop me; what matters is what effects me, and unless some aliens from halfway across the universe come to stop by, I don't care. XD

But, to any such aliens, we look like someone who stays in their house all the time, just stepping out onto the porch occasionally. I don't think the aliens would find us that interesting.