What's the stupidest space-related thing you've ever heard someone say?

[SlabGizor117]

...they just cross-couple the Heisenberg compensators through the power coupling relays and its all good.

Ahh, right. But you have to modulate the shield frequency to the phase variant of the impulse engines, otherwise the plasma exhaust weakens the shields.

[Foxster]

Ahh, right. But you have to modulate the shield frequency to the phase variant of the impulse engines, otherwise the plasma exhaust weakens the shields.

Damn. Forgot about that. I'd have been all like, "The shells and stuff, with like pulses and plassum.... Tell you what, you do this bit, Spock".

Edited March 25, 2015 by Foxster

[KerBlammo]

Don't forget to also reverse the polarity and re-route through the deflector dish.

[Robotengineer]

(Paraphrasing.)

"It's impossible."

"Who would want to go to space?"

"It'll never happen."

"Space is a waste."

"Science is a waste of money."

From Interstellar.

"Everyone knows that the Apollo missions were faked, they were really an attempt to bankrupt the Soviet Union..."

I have never understood people who say something is impossible or something that is possible never happened. History is brimming with tales of people who predicted that new inventions and ideas would fail and were proven wrong, the telephone, the internet, and space travel come to mind, but the list goes on. Willful ignorance is the greatest threat to humanity and scientific progress in my opinion, and it is the responsibility of all educated people to fight ignorance.

[viktor19]

There was an article on a news portal with a title: "Ancient crater made by 400 - kilometer wide meteor found in Australia". Ugh everyone is a journalist nowadays (with some bright exceptions)...

[Greenfire32]

what i don't get are the shuttle crafts. what powers them? did i miss a episode or do they never explain it. is it the same stuff that powers the starships.

...they just cross-couple the Heisenberg compensators through the power coupling relays and its all good.

Ahh, right. But you have to modulate the shield frequency to the phase variant of the impulse engines, otherwise the plasma exhaust weakens the shields.

Damn. Forgot about that. I'd have been all like, "The shells and stuff, with like pulses and plassum.... Tell you what, you do this bit, Spock".

Don't forget to also reverse the polarity and re-route through the deflector dish.

I don't mean to derail the thread, but this has to be posted now:

[turkwinif]

We went over Mars One for a week in Current Events, and a senior girl asked, "Does Mars have gravity?"

I nearly lost faith in our generation in that moment.

[SlabGizor117]

We went over Mars One for a week in Current Events, and a senior girl asked, "Does Mars have gravity?"

I nearly lost faith in our generation in that moment.

Rightly so.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It's not I heard /someone/ say, but it was in the narration for an episode of Transformers: Energon. "We warped into another galaxy on the outer reaches of the solar system."

[sporkafife]

"Why is the moon up during the day!?" - my 24 YEAR OLD sister... I just stared in blank amazement

[jarmund]

My friends care so little about space they don't even dwell on it long enough to say stupid things about it. :/

Ifter reading The Mote in God's Eye and The Forever War, it seems to me that rushing somewhere in science fiction isn't about speed but acceleration. I choose to believe that the "stopping" we're seeing is the other ship continuing to consume dV for tactical advantages while Enterprise is drifting.

Just a thought... I don't care that much, as sci fi to me is entertainment, not physics lessons (Apart from Scott Manleys videos... they serve both purposes)

[SkyRender]

It's something of a rare delight when one encounters an informed individual on the nature of space flight. I am sorry to say that even the generation that grew up with the excitement of the Apollo missions still by and large does not even grasp the fundamentals of how orbiting works. I still find that many adults from the Boomer generation are astonished to learn that objects in orbit are not in fact stationary, but rather moving at ludicrous speeds as compared to what we can achieve down here on the surface.

I blame the Coconut Effect. (The Coconut Effect being that people will cling to falsehoods presented by the media and claim that the real deal is fake because it doesn't match what they saw in their entertainment.)

[Frybert]

We went over Mars One for a week in Current Events, and a senior girl asked, "Does Mars have gravity?"

I nearly lost faith in our generation in that moment.

I remember when I was in 8th grade (a LOOOOOOOONG time ago) getting into an argument with my science teacher over a project. She INSISTED Mars had no atmosphere.

[LordFerret]

We went over Mars One for a week in Current Events, and a senior girl asked, "Does Mars have gravity?"

I nearly lost faith in our generation in that moment.

I already have.

[KerBlammo]

I remember when I was in 8th grade (a LOOOOOOOONG time ago) getting into an argument with my science teacher over a project. She INSISTED Mars had no atmosphere.

I once got into a heated and prolong argument in an off-topic forum of another site about whether Mars had an atmosphere. the other guy ended up blocking me when I would not admit that he was right and Mars had no atmosphere.

I saw a comment on an air craft forum about the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 where the poster thought that maybe it just kept climbing and was actually floating around in space now.

[Random Tank]

Eh, I understand that a lot of people don't know much about space; it's a complicated subject and usually it's so mind-bogglingly confusing for most folks that it daunts them and they think they could never learn about it.... I don't blame them for that; rather than judge people harshly, shake my head at people or "lose faith in humanity", I just inform them how it really is... "Wait, can't you use chutes on the Moon?" "No, because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere (well it's negligible), so a parachute wouldn't generate any drag, so wouldn't slow the craft down; you could on Titan though, one of the moons of Saturn, as its atmosphere is 1.7 times thicker than Earth's!" Educate, don't discriminate!

"They did it in the studio" - about Moon landings...

Hahahaha, what? You believe they went to the Moon? Everyone knows that the Moon landings were faked on Mars... duhhh

I hope you realise that's a joke....

[Ten Key]

My second grade science teacher thought the moon was a star.

I don't think there's such a thing as a stupid question though-- asking questions is how people learn.

[Deutherius]

Eh, I understand that a lot of people don't know much about space; it's a complicated subject and usually it's so mind-bogglingly confusing for most folks that it daunts them and they think they could never learn about it.... I don't blame them for that; rather than judge people harshly, shake my head at people or "lose faith in humanity", I just inform them how it really is... "Wait, can't you use chutes on the Moon?" "No, because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere (well it's negligible), so a parachute wouldn't generate any drag, so wouldn't slow the craft down; you could on Titan though, one of the moons of Saturn, as its atmosphere is 1.7 times thicker than Earth's!" Educate, don't discriminate.

I was going to rant a bit about how ridiculing others for not knowing something/making a mistake/asking "dumb" questions is wrong (especially when the topic is out of their area of expertise), but now I don't have to - thank you. I completely agree with everything you wrote there.

[Corw]

It's something of a rare delight when one encounters an informed individual on the nature of space flight. I am sorry to say that even the generation that grew up with the excitement of the Apollo missions still by and large does not even grasp the fundamentals of how orbiting works. I still find that many adults from the Boomer generation are astonished to learn that objects in orbit are not in fact stationary, but rather moving at ludicrous speeds as compared to what we can achieve down here on the surface.

I blame the Coconut Effect. (The Coconut Effect being that people will cling to falsehoods presented by the media and claim that the real deal is fake because it doesn't match what they saw in their entertainment.)

http://i62.tinypic.com/ut3t5.jpg [Reaction image]

Edited March 25, 2015 by sal_vager

[Lukaszenko]

Eh, I understand that a lot of people don't know much about space; it's a complicated subject and usually it's so mind-bogglingly confusing for most folks that it daunts them and they think they could never learn about it.... I don't blame them for that; rather than judge people harshly, shake my head at people or "lose faith in humanity", I just inform them how it really is...

This approach doesn't always work, especially when you encounter the truly dumb person:

I once got the good ol' "there's no gravity in space" comment.

I tried to correct her, but she immediately angered in response because "there's no gravity in space "

This short exchange therefore automatically defaulted into an argument. Unfortunatley, she held onto this curious concept where "I never argue, unless I'm 100% sure that I'm correct."

The result of this logical loop is, of course, that there's no gravity in space.

Complex or mind boggling or whatever, that was a truly stupid space-related comment. Not because of the comment itself, but because of the person that presented it, and the way she approached the possibility of being wrong.

[Musil]

My brother thought the Apollo missions had gone to the Moon using RCS. «Once in space, you only need a a little burst of oxygen to go anywhere». I almost lost it.

[EdFred]

"Why is the moon up during the day!?" - my 24 YEAR OLD sister... I just stared in blank amazement

But how does she LOOK?

[StrandedonEarth]

Not so much saying something stupid, but just outdated information: My grade 7 teacher said Mercury was the hottest planet for the obvious reason of being closest to the sun. He was shocked when I showed him a university-level textbook explaining that Venus was hotter due to the greenhouse effect of its thick atmosphere

[SelectHalfling0]

The ISS floats.

I guess for someone who has only seen news reports on emergencies on the ISS, this is not very stupid.

[Robotengineer]

Eh, I understand that a lot of people don't know much about space; it's a complicated subject and usually it's so mind-bogglingly confusing for most folks that it daunts them and they think they could never learn about it.... I don't blame them for that; rather than judge people harshly, shake my head at people or "lose faith in humanity", I just inform them how it really is... "Wait, can't you use chutes on the Moon?" "No, because the Moon doesn't have an atmosphere (well it's negligible), so a parachute wouldn't generate any drag, so wouldn't slow the craft down; you could on Titan though, one of the moons of Saturn, as its atmosphere is 1.7 times thicker than Earth's!" Educate, don't discriminate!

Education works when the person you seek to educate is curious about the subject and willing to learn. If they don't care, or if they stick to their plainly irrational view and refuse to even accept that the facts you present have merit, you might as well give up. It is almost impossible to reason somebody out of a position they were not reasoned into. They have to want to believe facts. In my view, it is better to prevent people from getting false ideas ingrained on them from the start, than to try to do attempt to cure it later in life.