your funiest misconceptions about space

[mjessick]

Misconception: Money spent on space research is "spent in space."

(Most of the money from space research is probably spent at Walmart )

 

[ijuin]

Yeah, it's all spent to pay the folks who design and build and operate the spacecraft. Most of it doesn't even leave the United States.

 

[silent_protagonist]

In short, Star Trek.

Once when I was very young I remember being scared to go into space because I thought I might fall into a black hole. (Come to think of it, it might have been after seeing Voyager's second episode, which was itself a goldmine of hilarious misconceptions) At the time I thought things like stars and galaxies just floated around inside the solar system and posed real threats to the space shuttle.

Later on, I'd read books like The Science of Star Wars or A Brief History of Time and come up with crazy theories for warp drives and weapons, etc; such as shooting a bullet close enough to the speed of light that it would become small and massive enough to collapse into a singularity and swallow enemy ships; or using the GUT to basically make anything you wanted (such as gravitons for warp drive or strange matter to hold open a wormhole) out of poo by heating it up enough. (God particle from the machine?)

 

[simonpro]

I remember I spent at least a month trying to make a lego rocket when I was about 6, I honestly thought I could get one to fly.

Managed to make a lego helicopter at one point, but it disintegrated after about 4 seconds.

 

[TSPenguin]

I remember I spent at least a month trying to make a lego rocket when I was about 6, I honestly thought I could get one to fly.

Managed to make a lego helicopter at one point, but it disintegrated after about 4 seconds.

My Lego helicopter survived it's first flight thanks to it's very advanced guidance control (Hand version 2.1). Unfortunately it tried a landing in the Hangar which was a little bit too small...

 

[barcode]

When I was a kid I believed that faster than light travel was not only possible, but would be invented by the year 2000. I blame that on watching too much sci-fi on TV.

 

[tomek]

I once used to think that gravity increases with distance - hence it hurts more to fall from greater heights. That was way before I even learned the word "gravity" though, or even "acceleration" - I just though you're "pulled down" more strongly as you get higher.

 

[markl316]

I also felt afraid of falling into a black hole if orbiting earth.
I thought that the people opposite from me were upside down, and everywhere on Earth I traveled, the Earth compensated for me so that I would always be perfectly right side up. When I was little, talking to my grandparents on vacation in Italy, I imagined that they were having a miserable time because everything was upside down.

 

[V8Li]

I thought that in order to get into orbit (a stable one) you just need to shoot up and fly over a certain altitude. Guess I knew nothing about orbital velocity .

 

[Ghostrider]

Misconception: Money spent on space research is "spent in space."

(Most of the money from space research is probably spent at Walmart )

They have Walmart in space? There goes another misconception - I thought only 7-Eleven operated there.

 

[eveningsky339]

To get into orbit, all one needs to do is shoot a rocket straight up to the place higher up than the airplanes fly.

Why did the space shuttle have such a big fuel tank? All they needed was a tank about the size of the one in my mom's car. And you just filled her up at the gas station.

Why did the space shuttle have to go so fast when coming back down? It was stupid. Just fire rockets the other way and land like a helicopter.

Why didn't NASA just take a really big plane like the 747, strap a rocket to it, fly up to 40,000 feet and then just launch the airliner into space? Space tourism is easy. The future is now!

 

[spaceranger]

I tried to launch a tower of cardboard tubes sporting carboard fins with an array of balloons scotch-taped to the sides, in two stages. I inflated the balloons and had my entire immediate family each hold two of balloons with me. I counted down and we all let go of the balloons. The cardboard rocket went up about a half inch and then promptly fell over. I gained a new appreciation of NASA's '60's space program right then and there at age 8.

 

[ar81]

Before I played Orbiter I had these misconceptions...

1.Reentry at 30 degrees or higher angles is possible
2.I thought planets were closer than they actually are.
3.Reentry heat was caused by friction only, not compression
4.Star Wars physics were true for short distances in orbit.
5.Simplified physics in my mind (no gravitational gradient torque, for example)
6.I thought going to space was to go upwards. Tangential velocity was new to me.
7.I thought asteroid field looked like in Star Wars.
8.I never suspected that magnetism around Jupiter could kill you.
9.I thought Antarctica was more hostile than Mars.
10.I thought that a human would explode in space due to lack of atmospheric pressure.
11.I thought reentry flames were made of fire, not plasma
12.I thought Battlestar Galactica wars would be possible
13.I thought space elevator was possible.
14.I thought that orbital velocities around moon were slower.
15.I thought Earth was bigger in the universe.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

13.I thought space elevator was possible.

Well, theoretically...

 

[Master of Blades]

Before I played Orbiter I had these misconceptions...
[Long list]

Yeezh... I actually believed (up until 1 second ago), some of the things you've listed... :blush:

One of my missconceptions that i had before I started Orbiter, was that deorbiting was performed by pointing the nose of the spacecraft, "straight downwards" (Nadir), and burning the engines....

 

[nasakid]

I knew some about space sence 2 or 3. i really dont remember any mis conceptions. actually when i was younger i was one of the only 2 people in our grade who knew a lot about space. Actually I had to correct My L.A. Teacher once or twice! We were reading about the challenger and i talked and talked. But it saved us from taking a test! Lol

 

[James.Denholm]

I remeber thinking that if a spaceship's engines wern't on, the ship would simply stop and hang in space... Thanks a lot, Star Wars. And same goes to you, StarLancer.

Also, that ship-to-ship missiles in space was viable...

 

[nasakid]

Just remembered one! I thought there could be fire in space!

 

[Jebusy]

Yeezh... I actually believed (up until 1 second ago), some of the things you've listed... :blush:

same here..hahahaha.. to be honest it wasnt till my mid teens i found out that....
1. People dont go to the moon now at all and the havnt been there for decades..and there is NOT a big moon base there now.

2.A space shuttle has never been to the moon. i can safely say that MILLIONS do actually believe that they have or still do...especially young people as there wasnt things like the gemini/apollo/first space shuttle launches to teach us.

3. that stars are not other planets similar to earth or mars.

oh and when i was really young i thought being in orbit was when you where in space and you got caught in the equator...... my fault was believing that the line on world maps actually exists... i thought you float up without stopping in space...when i heard terms like high gravity i thought of magnetism...that metal would be flying around the place....and i believed that the size of the universe both had an end and did not have an end...i cant really remember the specifics but it was kind of like how a sock can be turned inside out and outside in again

 

[astrosammy]

My misconceptions:

-the space shuttle always floats 300km above KSC, and has the engines running the whole mission

-when I saw hubble pictures of an asteroid on TV I thought it flew to this asteroid

-the mankind is already travelling trough the whole solar system


And misconceptions of my classmates:

-we have been on Mars

-scientists flew to the sun

-Hans Schlegel had to return to earth because of his medical problem on STS-122


And a math teacher's misconception:

-a sattelite is in an 30km orbit. How high is the air pressure? :rofl: