FALLACIES, FALLACIES, FALLACIES...

[Matuchkin]

A quick explanation of what I mean, using examples from my life:

1. My school textbook on science states that a rocket requires 7000m/s to EXIT THE ATMOSPHERE...

2. It also states that Canada (the country I live in, so obviously the book will glorify it) is leading in space technology, and launched the third satellite ever (yeah, of course, whatever you say).

3. (teacher) "So here's the really hard part, the docking"

(Me) "*raises hand*Sure, but don't the astronauts have to go through a perfectly timed launch, align orbits perfectly, and a few degrees of orbital misalignment can mean mission failure-"

(Teacher) "*waves arm* Yeah, but after all of that basic stuff the real, hard test comes, when the situation is life or death. A single mistake can send the ship into a million pieces..."

4. On a trip to the Ontario Science Centre, my class had to go through a Mars mission "simulation". According to the simulation, mission control can talk to Mars crafts instantaneously, crafts have to dodge Olympus Mons when reentering, undocking from mothership happens outside Mars SOI, and, when reentry trajectory is too shallow, landing craft will bounce off the atmosphere and literally fly out of Mars's SOI.

5. To add to all of that, my textbook says that fuel in a rocket has to be calculated precisely to the millilitre, the perfectly exact amount of fuel required to reach orbit (yes, margin-of-error is apparently not a thing here.

I want to ask at this point- does anyone here have to deal with this ignorance?

[Evanitis]

And here I am being annoyed by the inaccuracies of The Expanse that even tries to look realistic.. sometimes.

 

BTW, I never had to face such annoyances - they thought us none of the space-stuff, so I only seen the Nasa documentaries. Those were fine I guess.

But get elected and reform the education, that never hurts.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Evanitis

[Matuchkin]

Just now, Evanitis said:

And here I am being annoyed by the inaccuracies of The Expanse that even tries to look realistic.. sometimes.

The annoying thing here is that school staff and Ontario Science Centre staff are supposed to know what they're talking about.

 

2 minutes ago, Evanitis said:

BTW, I never had to face such inaccuracies - they thought us none of the space-stuff, so I only seen the Nasa documentaries. Those were fine I guess.

What country do you live in? The Canadian school system is known to be terrible. I studied at home before going to highschool.

[comham]

The worst I had was a supply teacher who insisted "the moon has no gravity", when clearly she meant "no atmosphere" and was simply stubborn.

[Nemrav]

Its different here on the east cost, don't have science this semester, but the last science teacher I had, when we got to the space unit he immediately said "there are a lot of discoveries going on lately so if I get anything wrong, just tell me", (he didn't get anything wrong) though the curriculum was kind of mediocre, and didn't require too much in the unit, he explained the falling around a planet and such.

Also to explain those inaccuracies, Canada was the third nation to build a satellite (U.K. 3rd to launch and France 3rd to build their own launcher). In robotic arms, it appears we still lead the way, last I heard, we were still doing more research on it.

And the science center is probly simplifying things (Most ksp players don't use remote tech), though leaving mars' soi is a bit strange.
Docking sounds silly, very disappointing.

 

Edited January 22, 2016 by Nemrav

[Matuchkin]

Just now, comham said:

The worst I had was a supply teacher who insisted "the moon has no gravity", when clearly she meant "no atmosphere" and was simply stubborn.

I once talked to a 40-year-old man, who claimed to "know a lot about space". He thought that launches costed trillions of dollars (literally). He tried to disprove the Apollo landings, by saying "think about it", and "the blueprints burned up in a house fire, isn't that a little suspicious?". He thought that rovers were controlled purely by automation, and that they may rebel. Later, he started talking about the dangers that a rover could face. When I told him that Mars was mapped in great detail, he said something in the lines of "well, the conditions of Mars are constantly changing, how can you possibly determine anything by holding a map and looking at it". After I explained to him that the maps generated by the MRO are not in paper format and are constantly showing Mars weather, etc, he said "so you're planning to spend trillions of dollars to send up a satellite to Mars"? I could not manage to make him understand that there was already a satellite mapping Mars. Later, he recommended hovering helicopters above the rover, in order to track it.

Your supply teacher was even wrong about the Moon having no atmosphere. You could have been a great know-it-all there.

[Starwaster]

My cousin's science teacher fell for the DHMO thing... after I printed it out and got her good with it, she decided to test her science teacher. He failed.

[Camacha]

Please do not make this another 'KSP players are superior and normal people are stoopid' thread.

[Matuchkin]

7 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Please do not make this another 'KSP players are superior and normal people are stoopid' thread.

I'm not talking about that. There are normal people (the majority), who know their limits. Those are people I respect. Then, there are the people mentioned in this thread.

If this turns into a KSP superiority-themed thread, I will personally make sure to ask for its shut-down. The attitude I'm going for here is more like "I know, right?", not "we are the best".

Edited January 23, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

7 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

A quick explanation of what I mean, using examples from my life:

1. My school textbook on science states that a rocket requires 7000m/s to EXIT THE ATMOSPHERE...

2. It also states that Canada (the country I live in, so obviously the book will glorify it) is leading in space technology, and launched the third satellite ever (yeah, of course, whatever you say).

[...]

It takes about 9.3-10 km/s Delta-v to orbit, and about 1.4 km/s delta-v to suborbital.  Not quite sure where the 7 km/s came from.

The third satellite in orbit was Explorer 1, however Canada, in 1962, was the third country to launch ANY satellite.  Very interesting, still not the third satellite.

After that though...  It's annoying to hear that kind of stuff. 

[Matuchkin]

16 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

It takes about 9.3-10 km/s Delta-v to orbit, and about 1.4 km/s delta-v to suborbital.  Not quite sure where the 7 km/s came from.

Isn't like 2 km/s used for liftoff and raising apogee past the karman line (vertical acceleration, not horizontal)? That's what I see in my rockets, at least. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also see that the ISS orbits at 7.66047744 km/s. I was talking about the velocity required to reach orbit, not the velocity required to get altitude.

My point there, though, was that it takes that amount of dv to reach orbit, not to exit the atmosphere. By saying that that velocity is required to leave the atmosphere, the textbook is unintentionally referring to the karman line as a barrier that only lets objects with velocities higher than 7 km/s to pass through. In reality, you can literally inch out of the atmosphere.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

12 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

Isn't like 2 km/s used for liftoff and raising apogee past the karman line (vertical acceleration, not horizontal)? That's what I see in my rockets, at least. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also see that the ISS orbits at 7.66047744 km/s. I was talking about the velocity required to reach orbit, not the velocity required to get altitude.

My point there, though, was that it takes that amount of dv to reach orbit, not to exit the atmosphere. By saying that that velocity is required to leave the atmosphere, the textbook is unintentionally referring to the karman line as a barrier that only lets objects with velocities higher than 7 km/s to pass through. In reality, you can literally inch out of the atmosphere.

Those figures are from wikipedia, and 7 km/s to get out of the atmosphere is definitely wrong. 

[cantab]

The Average Joe can be forgiving for not knowing the details of spaceflight. A science textbook should know better though.

Then again, does KSP teach us much better?

A: To launch a rocket fly straight up about 8 miles then turn it over and start going east. (OK, this is mostly corrected now)

B: If you have a really awkward shape thing to put in orbit, fly straight up until it's in space then fly straight sideways until it makes a stable orbit.

C: Once you're in space there's no air drag to worry about.

D: If you're on a closed orbit it's going to stay the same forever.

E: If you want to put a satellite in geostationary orbit you need to get it at exactly the right height down to the metre.

F: Actually you just need to get it at exactly the right orbital period. Even a fraction of a second off and the satellite will drift out of place.

G: Basically where-ever you're going, you can launch at any time.

H: We know enough about the atmospheres of other planets that we can safely and reliably aerocapture into a stable orbit from an interplanetary trajectory.

I: The science equipment on a space probe weighs basically nothing.

J: RTGs last forever.

K: Stuff can crash or explode, but other than that space hardware is completely reliable and never breaks down.

L: Rovers on other planets or moons go really slowly, only about 70 miles per hour.

M: There is no politics to worry about when running a space program.

Edited January 23, 2016 by cantab
I may have forgotten the direction of prograde...

[Bill Phil]

35 minutes ago, cantab said:

The Average Joe can be forgiving for not knowing the details of spaceflight. A science textbook should know better though.

Then again, does KSP teach us much better?

A: To launch a rocket fly straight up about 8 miles then turn it over and start going east. (OK, this is mostly corrected now)

B: If you have a really awkward shape thing to put in orbit, fly straight up until it's in space then fly straight sideways until it makes a stable orbit.

C: Once you're in space there's no air drag to worry about.

D: If you're on a closed orbit it's going to stay the same forever.

E: If you want to put a satellite in geostationary orbit you need to get it at exactly the right height down to the metre.

F: Actually you just need to get it at exactly the right orbital period. Even a fraction of a second off and the satellite will drift out of place.

G: Basically where-ever you're going, you can launch at any time.

H: We know enough about the atmospheres of other planets that we can safely and reliably aerocapture into a stable orbit from an interplanetary trajectory.

I: The science equipment on a space probe weighs basically nothing.

J: RTGs last forever.

K: Stuff can crash or explode, but other than that space hardware is completely reliable and never breaks down.

L: Rovers on other planets or moons go really slowly, only about 70 miles per hour.

M: There is no politics to worry about when running a space program.

True, but it doesn't claim that it acts like the real world, it's not claiming that's the truth. It exposes some of the complex aspects, but minimizes the other aspects for gameplay purposes, or just to ease up on the hardware.

[Matuchkin]

46 minutes ago, cantab said:

The Average Joe can be forgiving for not knowing the details of spaceflight. A science textbook should know better though.

Then again, does KSP teach us much better?

A: To launch a rocket fly straight up about 8 miles then turn it over and start going east. (OK, this is mostly corrected now)

B: If you have a really awkward shape thing to put in orbit, fly straight up until it's in space then fly straight sideways until it makes a stable orbit.

C: Once you're in space there's no air drag to worry about.

D: If you're on a closed orbit it's going to stay the same forever.

E: If you want to put a satellite in geostationary orbit you need to get it at exactly the right height down to the metre.

F: Actually you just need to get it at exactly the right orbital period. Even a fraction of a second off and the satellite will drift out of place.

G: Basically where-ever you're going, you can launch at any time.

H: We know enough about the atmospheres of other planets that we can safely and reliably aerocapture into a stable orbit from an interplanetary trajectory.

I: The science equipment on a space probe weighs basically nothing.

J: RTGs last forever.

K: Stuff can crash or explode, but other than that space hardware is completely reliable and never breaks down.

L: Rovers on other planets or moons go really slowly, only about 70 miles per hour.

M: There is no politics to worry about when running a space program.

Start off with stock, then go with RO and look a bit deeper into it. I never said that stock KSP is 100% realistic.

Also, so as not to make you confused, I also did not say that only RO would teach you absolutely everything. In general, KSP just teaches a lot about space.

[NeoMorph]

On 22/01/2016 at 8:13 PM, Evanitis said:

And here I am being annoyed by the inaccuracies of The Expanse that even tries to look realistic.. sometimes.

 

Yeah... and have you wondered yet why they forgot to take off the alignment arrow stickers from their HOTAS Warthog joysticks???? Oh and why the hell are they using gaming joysticks anyway... oh... right... budgets... and the builders are probably gamers who couldn't afford their own Warthog joysticks and thought this was a way to get them on the cheap hehe.

Edited January 24, 2016 by NeoMorph

[Matuchkin]

8 hours ago, NeoMorph said:

 

Yeah... and have you wondered yet why they forgot to take off the alignment arrow stickers from their HOTAS Warthog joysticks???? Oh and why the hell are they using gaming joysticks anyway... oh... right... budgets... and the builders are probably gamers who couldn't afford their own Warthog joysticks and thought this was a way to get them on the cheap hehe.

So I'll just sit here and pretend I understood the relationship of that to this thread...

[hugix]

On 22-1-2016 at 9:03 PM, Matuchkin said:

4.  when reentry trajectory is too shallow, landing craft will bounce off the atmosphere and literally fly out of Mars's SOI.

 

This actually is a possibility. You come into Mars's SOI at escape velocity, if your time in the atmosphere is to little your excess velocity might still be greater than escape velocity. Especially when your on a non ideal transfer to Mars. 

[Matuchkin]

5 hours ago, hugix said:

This actually is a possibility. You come into Mars's SOI at escape velocity, if your time in the atmosphere is to little your excess velocity might still be greater than escape velocity. Especially when your on a non ideal transfer to Mars. 

Yeah... I forgot to mention that there was a burn-to-orbit conducted in the "simulation".

[problemecium]

I got so used to this stuff that I often forget as soon as I've heard it, but here's a few I CAN recall:

- Rockets require something to push against, i.e. the launch pad, in order to get to space. (This person did not understand Newton's laws)
- Gravity is a property only of rotating objects.
- (Not about space, but) Since JPEGs use lossy compression, you should make a copy and then open the copy instead of opening the original file, to avoid the original file being degraded by repetitive reads. (no concept here of how copying works, digital storage, or the true nature of lossy compression)

[rustysocket]

My old science teacher didn't know if it was possible or not to orbit the moon.

 

[Matuchkin]

I once saw a youtube video called "UFO SEEN DOCKING AT ISS". It was talking about the soyuz.

[fredinno]

The entirety of Tumblr is a logical fallacy.

Edited January 26, 2016 by fredinno

[RainDreamer]

On 1/22/2016 at 3:52 AM, Matuchkin said:

Later, he recommended hovering helicopters above the rover, in order to track it.

Funny thing is, that is not a bad idea at all, though not for the reasons he thought it is. JPL proposed a helicopter drone to scout ahead for rovers http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

[Matuchkin]

5 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

Funny thing is, that is not a bad idea at all, though not for the reasons he thought it is. JPL proposed a helicopter drone to scout ahead for rovers http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4457

What is the speed of the helicopter rotors?