As fans of Sci-Fi and fantasy stories, we have all developed the skill of suspending our disbelief in some of the more fantastical elements of the stories we enjoy. We read a fantasy story and don’t ask why the spell works when you say funny words. When we read a Sci-Fi story, we don’t ask how a ship can be powered by a black hole. For some TV shows, we don’t ask why people want to live in a town that has an enormous fatality rate (R.E. Sunnydale, Eureka, or any place that Jessica Fletcher lives.) We either accept or intentionally overlook these strange elements so that we can enjoy the stories.
But there comes a time, even in the the best of our favorite stories, where some event or explanation smacks your suspension of disbelief into a wall and you are hit with an “OH, COME ON! What are you thinking?” moment (I’ll call it the “OCO!” moment to save space). The moment can take you out of the scene and turn a serious story into a parody. In the worst cases, it is called “Nuking the Fridge”.
A recent post on Slashdot asked: Where will we find the next “science hero?” The author implied that ever since Carl Sagan finished Cosmos, no one’s stepped up to bring science to the public as effectively. Thankfully, I’m not sure that’s true! But read on for my top four Carl Sagan replacement contenders — plus seven honorable mention candidates, too.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Launch of Apollo 11. At 9:32 a.m. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins left the Earth on a great adventure to the moon. Four days later the Eagle landed at Tranquility Base, and mankind first set foot on another world.
NASA has prepared an interactive web page for the Apollo 11 landing site in celebration, linked below. How are you celebrating this special day?
“Space,” Douglas Adams says in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” Seriously! It’s tough to grasp how big space really is. Even NASA modifies their artwork to get things to fit on the screen, but movies and TV shows tend to be the worst offenders. To paraphrase my hero Phil Plait, spaceships travel at the speed of plot.
So, to bring back the majesty — the amazing, mind boggling hugeness — of space, here’s a little primer on how big things really are in space, complete with examples of how to demonstrate these scales at home with your kids. And for those of you that don’t have kids, this is a great opportunity to geek out with your friends and learn about space at the same time.
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