Nikolai

Gene Cernan was reprimanded for swearing on Apollo 10. And while he was careful on the air, my personal favorite astronaut, Pete Conrad, was said to have sworn like a sailor in private life. (Which, considering he was Navy, is probably appropriate.)

Um, no. As long as we're talking about cultural impact or impact on spaceflight capability, the US beat the Soviet Union prior to landing on the Moon in: * First communications satellite * First weather satellite * First spy satellite * First successful satellite return from orbit * First pilot-controlled spaceflight * First satellite navigation system * First piloted spacecraft orbital change * First geosynchronous and first geostationary satellites * First orbital rendezvous * First reusable spacecraft * First spacecraft docking The Soviets certainly had a head start, but by the time rendezvous and docking came about, the U.S. pretty much had taken the lead.

The official website touts it as the most realistic space travel depicted in a movie yet. And I like the setting. It's impossible to get any idea about the plot or characters from the trailer, though.

I tend to agree, even though I'm one of the ones who gripes that it would be nice to have more realistic space travel movies from Hollywood. The more movies about space travel are lucrative to studios, the more movies about space travel we're going to get... and some of them might even take pains to be realistic. There's a difficulty when the space travel movie in question is, say, Armageddon, of course. Will the movie executives take that as "Audiences want more space travel!", or as "Audiences want more brainless sci-fi action with OMG explosions!"? Even though we get to vote with our cash for the movies we want, the communication link between producer and consumer is noisy. Not sure how to fix that, though the Internet has been making certain kinds of communication between producers and consumers possible that was a mere pipe dream in previous generations. For the same reason that I like to see musicians selling their art directly to consumers (cutting out the corrupt recording industry as a middle man), I'm optimistic.

Just having a SAFER doesn't automatically make it safer. On STS-121, for example, Piers Sellers' SAFER came unlatched during a test of Shuttle repair techniques. They're redesigning the latches with hard covers to prevent this from happening again. In the meantime, remember that assessing risk is hard -- especially in an inherently hazardous environment like space. The risk of something bad happening on EVA needs to be balanced against the odds of the extra equipment causing something bad to happen on EVA.

Perhaps. But it is hysterical. Seriously, though -- whether you "kill" Kerbals or not, all you've done is shuffle some voltage around on microscopic capacitors. You haven't really performed an ethical or moral act either way. As for rational... while KSP fans seem to like a certain amount of reason and puzzle-solving in their fun, there's no reason entertainment has to justify itself logically.

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. -- Richard Feynman, The Character of Physical Law, chapter 6, "Probability and Uncertainty" This was a man who worked deeply with the subject matter and excelled at explaining deep concepts to people. I think he would have agreed with your statement perfectly.

Some quick thoughts: * If you have rest mass, you're not getting to the speed of light. It would require an infinite amount of energy to get there. From every inertial reference frame it's possible for you to get to, the speed of light would appear to be invariant. * Light in vaccum never goes slower than c. What I mean by that is that it's not as if light accelerates to c from some slower speed. It either exists -- at speed -- or it doesn't. Indeed, even when something is reflected, modern physics holds that one photon is absorbed and another emitted; it's not as if the photon "bounces" off the surface (though we can pretend it does to model things like momentum transfer). * Thus, in many ways, the vantage point of a photon is unique. We cannot make claims about how it will appear to our inertial reference frames based on how things appear to it. Does that help?

Oh, that's great! I especially like the "man falling into grate" paradox.

Maybe it would help to realize that the same event occurs at different times in different frames of reference. Perhaps this paradox will clarify. Consider a train that is 1000 meters long at rest that can travel at 0.999c relative to its track. It passes through a tunnel with (flimsy) doors that can close instantly on both ends. The tunnel is 100 meters long (as measured by someone stationary relative to it). Because measured length changes for an object in motion, the tunnel's operator, who happens to be somewhat disgruntled this morning, sees the train as being about 44.7 meters long. Feeling a bit punchy, he closes the doors simultaneously with the train inside. Since the train is shorter than the tunnel, he can do so; a split second before the train smashes through the far door, there is some measurable time during which the train fit completely inside the tunnel. The train's conductor, on the other hand, sees the tunnel as a mere 4.47 meters long. He, too, sees the doors close on either side of the train. This would be a contradiction except that the conductor and the tunnel operator disagree on the timing of the door closings. From the tunnel operator's point of view, the doors closed simultaneously. From the conductor's point of view, the front (far) tunnel door closed long before the back tunnel door did. If you give up your ideas of a universal clock that everyone is measuring velocity with, and allow that distance and time are pliable in order to keep the speed of light constant in all reference frames, the fact that no one will ever see something appear to break c falls right out of the coordinate transformations from one frame of reference to another.

Oh, sure. Point being, though, that there's always much more to learn about a location than what we learn through probe data; there are a lot of questions we still have about what we found at the Apollo landing sites, for that matter. In other words, given how much there is to find out, it just seemed a little weird to phrase the opportunity cost in terms of the probe getting "enough" information (in the post I was replying to).

Ah, sweet. Thanks.

You think moviemakers too incurious to care about depicting spaceflight realistically are going to worry about depicting realistic spacecraft design? Interesting. I think we agree that these details should only be included only insofar as they assist the narrative. Sure. I think we both agree that there's a lot of room in between simply leaving details out and getting details you bother to mention wrong. To get there, you kind of had to wait and dig a little. It was his way of sharing his passion, and you'd have to let him talk for a bit before you realized why the things he thought were nifty were interesting. He may not have gone about it in the best way, but all of our personalities have rough edges. Oh, yeah, agreed -- it's a lot more difficult. Which is why it's all the more rewarding when you see a story/movie that does it well. Oppressed? Good heavens, no. Just wishing there were more things up my particular alley. Of course, in that, I probably share feelings common to all humans. You think? I mean, I don't have access to numbers, but that would surprise me. You've obviously never gotten into a debate with a hardcore Star Trek fan about how closely their particular favored franchise follows physics. But seriously, I find rather frequently that when I encounter someone with bad ideas about space travel, their misconceptions exist because they expect spaceflight to be like it is depicted in some movie. "Not unimaginable" is a bit difficult to quantify, but I follow your point. I strongly suspect that that is not a story that would get published or filmed. If plausibility was important to them, the creators would look for some other way to tell their story. Right, but you seem to be putting those expectations into some kind of artificial tension with one another. That's what I'm finding curious.

I'm not a biologist, though I traded wedding vows with one. First of all, the division between sexual and asexual reproduction is kind of fuzzy. There are many algaes, mosses, and ferns that have generations that alternate between sexual and asexual reproduction. During the asexual generations, for example, ferns reproduce with spores; during the sexual generations, they reproduce with sperm released to swim to eggs in the (hopefully damp) soil. There are also single-celled organisms that swap genes, even though no distinct sexes exist. Perhaps one set of organisms evolved to transmit genetic information more efficiently than it received it, and another set of the same population evolved to receive more efficiently than it transmitted. If these differences snowball, perhaps they could give rise to different sexes. AIUI, though, the actual evidence concerning how sexual reproduction arose is scant. It's not that there's doubt that it did evolve; the questions are aimed at figuring out how.

Really? You think there's a point where scientific curiosity decides, "No, we know enough about that completely alien location already"?

Except that we found out some important and interesting things by seeing what happens to materials left on the lunar surface for a while. The lunar surface is outside the Van Allen belts, and has periods of light and darkness that are fundamentally different from, say, near-Earth orbit. If we expect to erect long-term structures on the Moon one day, the knowledge thus gained and applied to materials science will be quite valuable. We also discovered some things we didn't expect to -- like single-celled organisms that were living in the insulation foam of the camera the entire time, in spite of the hostile environment. (Not thriving, mind. But living.)

I'm sorry, but I can't seem to find out where the 3000x1700 highres versions are. Could you supply a link or something? Am I blind or clueless?

But that's the entire point. There's already an audience that is fiercely interested in your subject matter. If mimesis breaks for them -- if their suspension of disbelief is shattered -- they're no longer along for your ride. And that's a shame, because their deep interest means that they're the ones most likely to be loyal to your production after the novelty wears off. (Witness the countless threads in this forum asking for recommendations for fiction that depicts realistic spaceflight.) That's because we know details, so we'll be the ones to notice when someone else takes the time and makes the effort to try to get it right. I'm not saying that you add it in just to add it in. As with the discussion about portraying every mundane detail of spaceflight, you don't have to include it if it doesn't move the plot along or reveal something important about the characters. (Again, I'm not saying you add it in just to add it in. You keep pretending that that's what I want. Stop it. ) But defying what people interested in the subject matter know to be true is actively working against realism, and that's what we want to see flouted less often, precisely because we're interested in what you're trying to say about it. There seems to be this mindset that appealing to the broadest base possible ought to be the goal. Whether or not that's true, appealing to the broadest base possible is not exclusive to being realistic. (Enduring works of art are capable of communicating something to people with all levels of understanding. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor appeals to someone with limited musical knowledge in one way, and to the person who understands music theory deeply in another. The techncial excellence of Bach's composition is not mere "padding"; it gives the work life to those who care enough about it to notice the care given to the structure.) Making personal attacks on people who enjoy realism (and how much fun they must be at parties) takes this mindset to the degree that it can insult people and mistake that for a logical point. Sure, if that's the only thing that matters to you(*). But if you're considering how physics plays into the story as a whole, then you're being no more of a pedant than someone who examines two different elements of the story (e.g., plot points or characters) and tries to talk out their worth/realism/contribution to the narrative. (*) And if you're not doing it for, say, the fun of the exercise alone. Believe it or not, examining the physics behind speculative or futuristic stories is fun for its own sake for some people. Don't make the mistake of thinking everyone has to enjoy the same things you enjoy in the same way that you enjoy them, or even that you know exactly why some things are fun for others. I know. Not my point. My point is that they can be without long explanations about how guns work. Because they're the ones who are most likely to be interested in seeing what I have to say before I even get going. The narrative has to be strong enough to keep those without that prior interest, of course; but if I write a story in ancient Persia, I can expect to sell it in part because that setting already appeals to some people. With that in mind, I'd be remiss not to learn what historical ancient Persia was like and to try to remain consistent with it. That's the assertion you keep making (without basis), and it's precisely that which I mean to contest. You don't have to add detail that doesn't pertain to your story. You also don't have to defy reality in order to get your story across. A lot of fellow space geeks I spend time with hated the movie Armageddon, for example, and I think that it was because it broke the contract it was setting up with people who enjoy the subject matter for its own sake. It started out with Charleton Heston narrating CGI depicting the K-T impact 65 million years ago that created Chicxulub Crater and wiped out the dinosaurs (and lots of other creatures). The voiceover threw out information about the timing, the size of the asteroid, and the energy released on impact(**); I think that set a lot of space geeks to think that this would be a film that would be an attempt to depict asteroid diversion and its challenges with a certain degree of realism. When it came out and actually displayed sub-comic-book-level physics, they felt as if some sort of initial promise made to them by the movie's creators had been violated. Of course, Armageddon was a very successful movie. It's patently obvious that most people don't care about realism. But for those who already have an interest, we just want to be able to attend a movie about our interest without feeling like we're being misled or that certain things are done more for the convenience of the plot the creators wanted than because the creators respect our fascination with the general subject matter. (**) Yeah, it was all wrong, but a theater's not exactly the place to whip out some paper and a scientific calculator to check the figures. That depends on the story, doesn't it? If there's no reason for that information to be in the story, there's no reason to mention it. But no one is saying you need to add this information in without cause or context. If you need to have heat radiators in your story for whatever reason, just make sure they don't violate what we know to be true. That's all. (Here's where movies are at a disadvantage. If a book were written about the world's greatest poet, for example, readers would feel cheated if you didn't show some of the poetry -- or, even worse, if you tried to show some of the poetry, and it really wasn't that good. If heat radiators are important to your story, and your story pays a passing nod to realism, those who know how heat works will be disappointed if you show them and they clearly violate realism.) Consider the parallel way in which detective fiction can make up cause-effect relationships that don't actually exist (magic tech that can pull DNA samples from a fifteen-year-old blood stain, for example) or laws that aren't actually on the books that criminals can be charged with. Most people won't care. But as for those who are already interested in real-life detective work, their mimesis is shattered and their suspension of disbelief is gone. You've lost them. It's a question of craft, of the care that goes into a work. In a fundamental way, we all expect craft at some level, evidence that the artist has put in effort, some clue that she respects the audience she is trying to communicate to with her art. Those who can perceive the degree of craft more deeply will (or, at least, should) appreciate it more deeply. As an engineer, I think it curious that you seem to find those two things at odds with one another.

"Presents spaceflight realistically" is not the same as "discusses orbital mechanics". There's a long distance between including orbital mechanics in the narrative of your story and neglecting the fact that orbital mechanics even exist. I disagree, only because "presents spaceflight realistically" is not the same as "presents spaceflight pedantically". You don't have to "let the pedantry-cat out of the bag" at all in order to present spaceflight realistically, in much the same way that you don't have to lecture the audience about ballistics to present guns behaving realistically. Precedence, yes, but you're talking as if there's no way to respect the physics and tell a decent story. You don't have to make your story a physics lesson, but you can still have things behave as the laws of physics dictate they should (and not violate physics for a plot point). There are some storylines and such that lend themselves to that model pretty well, but not all sci-fi has to be this or fill this role -- nor should it. It's not my contention that all sci-fi should obey the laws of physics; a lot of it bumps right up against fantasy, as you mention. But I'd like to see more that puts in the effort. There are ways in which some storylines can actually helped by having the characters work within limitations that are present in reality rather than having them surmount reality, since this is a struggle everyone in the audience also faces. I think it's possible that we've misunderstood one another. I don't mean to insist that all science fiction must be "hard". I merely wish there were more "hard" sci-fi, and that there's a very good reason to expect that so-called "science" fiction would try to pay attention to science in a way that appealing to "fiction" doesn't completely cover. No one's saying that "presents science realistically" means "includes long lectures about current scientific thought", either.

I think you're confusing "Stuff they spent most of their time doing" with "Stuff that constitutes the main action of the journey". Put another way: There is no other fill-in-the-blank-fiction genre that fills its time with stuff people actually spend most of their time doing; they merely focus on the actions that most influence plot or character development. Why does realistic spaceflight in fiction have to be different?

And human existence consists much more of mundane events -- one might even say, almost entirely of them -- than of the sort of thing people watching an uncompromisingly realistic historical fiction movie expect to see. That doesn't mean that an uncompromisingly realistic historical fiction movie must contain these events. It seems, then, like you're dodging the question: Why do fictional realistic spaceflight movies have to have these details, whereas other kinds of realistic fiction do not? I'm guessing that you've never watched historical fiction with an historian. A former roommate of mine who intended to go into teaching(*) majored in history, and found almost every American Civil War movie unwatchable because they'd inevitably get the mechanical details wrong -- creating plot points to drive the plot that, given the technology of the day, would have been flat-out impossible. (*) He ended up going into some kind of medical billing and coding instead. But teaching was his intent, and drove his college studies. Of course not. But it can incorporate realistic science without being about science. Are you arguing, then, that science fiction doesn't have to be about science, but it does have to be about Romance? And even if that's your point, why do the two have to be mutually exclusive?

What makes you think that waking up, running on a treadmill, showering, eating breakfast, etc., are the main action of the journey? It's possible to make an uncompromisingly realistic depiction of history on film without going into detail about how often Napoleon had to relieve his bladder or what the Duke of Wellington had for breakfast or what von Blucher's exercise regimen looked like or every conversation Louis XVIII entertained, every day, for a month. Why is a realistic representation of spaceflight different? Why does it require this level of detail, while other fictional genres do not?

Let me change the question. Why do you think an uncompromisingly realistic story would have to include every detail?

Irrelevant. You can make a von Neumann machine out of anything that has state and the means to change that state. Whether that state is a function of electric fields across tiny capacitors or the location of I-beams mounted to large wheels makes no difference whatsoever, except in terms of trivial things like space occupied and speed of computation. If you had a large enough beach with enough seashells, enough time, and the rules to manipulate them, you could precisely duplicate KSP. Heck, you could even have someone hand you the C# code after you got the pebbles and rules together, and if your shells and rules duplicate a von Neumann machine, you could compile it and run it on your seashell computer. The FPS rate would be pretty pathetic, though.

I have no idea why not. Maybe he doesn't understand physics. (Physics is hard.) Or maybe he can't get past the idea that difficult concepts can be communicated with little green muppety things that look like characters from a children's cartoon. Or maybe he doesn't know enough about the program and how it works to understand its educational potential. I remember talking to a good friend and theater major in college when she asked, "So what do engineers do, anyway?" I answered that, in a sense, we're professional inventors; it's our job to know how the universe works in a practical way so that when someone needs a machine to do something, we know how to build a thing that will do that with a minimum of time, money, and effort wasted on guesswork. To illustrate the point, I gestured toward her stereo. "That CD player? Someone had to design that. They needed to know how to put all the parts together so that it would work." What surprised me is that that blew her mind. It had honestly never occurred to her that someone, somewhere, had to know enough about electronics so that they could sit down and make decisions about how her stereo would be designed and assembled. She was fairly smart, and if she'd ever been asked to, she probably would have been able to invent something kind of like the design process. It had just never had a chance to cross her mind, so it was an entire way of understanding and dealing with the world that she was (unintentionally) blind to. I don't know your dad, obviously, but my experience has taught me that when people don't understand things, it's usually simply because they've never had much reason to give it much thought. I'm also something of a hopeless optimist when it comes to educating young people about science. Maybe all he needs is some idea of what you've learned and how you learned it. If there's a cure for his lack of understanding, it lies in communication.