your funiest misconceptions about space

[Kyle]

Well, Orbiter made us all have no Misconceptions for Physics in space..
As seeing as everyone here has atleast made it to the moon.
(I am an Advanced Orbiter player, really Advanced.)

 

[Star explorer]

my biggest misconsption was i thought to get into orbit you just went up and then a atmosphere drift or something will take over and move you around the earth around

 

[Zatnikitelman]

My main misconception was that rockets launched straight up. Then I burned Orbiter's Atlantis engines out of fuel back in the 03 version and got set straight!

I also thought that the engines had to be on for an Orbit and that to reenter, the nose was pointed straight down!

I also thought that to go to the moon, you pointed straight at it and drove the engines to their max until you got there. Boy was I surprised when Vespucci was reentering because the moon was retrograde of my position!

 

[Piper]

Another one I just thought of. When I was really young (I think around grade 2), I got the wacky idea you could use light itself to propel a ship (ie, put a big spotlight out the back of the ship, and it would push it forward) to the speed of light. I'm not even sure exactly what my reasoning was, but the ironic thing is, because of quantum theory there is some truce in it. Photons do actually exert a small force, so sticking a spotlight out the back of a ship would technically push it forward (albeit, at a very slow rate).

 

[Keatah]

I thought that planets would drag a long gkowing string along and therefore outline their orbital pathway. Like how they show you in textbooks and stuff.

 

[darian]

When I was a child growing up, the Space Shuttle what was attracted me to Space flight. Seeing the Space Shuttle at that time I had very little knowledge about it but I was able to know that the big rockets would blast it off into Space very fast and high. Well seeing the Shuttle with those huge fuel tanks I was kinda scared of it. I thought the Orbiter had its own fuel tank and the ET I thought was fuel for the 2 SRB's. I didn't even know the difference between solid and liquid rockets.

As far as Space itself I didn't even understand how objects orbit the earth until my senior year in High School. I could never make out the horizontal velocity and how it balances with gravitational force. :sorry::sorry::sorry:

 

[Master of Blades]

I thought the same about the ET and the SRB, that the ET contained the fuel for the SRB, but that was when i was say... 10-12 something...

Oh yeah, and when I just started Orbiter, I tried to go to the moon with the N1, by launching it straight up, then point the nose at the moon and just keep going.... I thought that was how they did it IRL...

Boy did i get surprised when I fell back down to earth... O,o

 

[nasakid]

Have another one, Hubble wasn't in orbit around earth

 

[ar81]

A math professor from a well known university said once before his students (when I showed them Orbiter) that Orbit MFD was inacurate because orbit looks too big for such a low altitude as LEO.

He also said that shuttle turned on the engines after reentry, like a normal plane...

I did not correct him so he won't be embarrased before his students.

 

[Master of Blades]

A math professor from a well known university said once before his students (when I showed them Orbiter) that Orbit MFD was inacurate because orbit looks too big for such a low altitude as LEO.

He also said that shuttle turned on the engines after reentry, like a normal plane...

I did not correct him so he won't be embarrased before his students.

Shame on him

Geez, even i knew (when i was 10) that the space shuttle landed as a glider...

 

[nasakid]

Shame on him

Geez, even i knew (when i was 10) that the space shuttle landed as a glider...

I knew that at age of 5! as i said, i knew alot about space

 

[Star explorer]

I thought the same about the ET and the SRB, that the ET contained the fuel for the SRB, but that was when i was say... 10-12 something...

i new that the ET suplied the shuttle with fuel since i was 6. though at 5 i thought it supplied both the shuttle and the SRBs

 

[Master of Blades]

I knew that at age of 5! as i said, i knew alot about space

Well I can't for the life of me remember what I did when I was 5... or well.. parts.. such as constantly babbling with my mates about the movie Space Jam

 

[pilotpercy]

when i was younger i used to make model rockets and launch them, they only went up 1000' or so but at the time i thought that they went to the fringe of space. i also built a compartment for my sisters hamster to ride in but neither my father or my sister would allow me to launch it (i dont think the hamster would have been too thrilled either, they're hardly the most pioneering species!!)

 

[Urwumpe]

(i dont think the hamster would have been too thrilled either, they're hardly the most pioneering species!!)

Don't let them hear that. Hamsters have always been on the forefront of innovation.

 

[ar81]

I also used to believe that you "fall towards Earth", not "around Earth". Orbiter changed that.

 

[jedidia]

Don't let them hear that. Hamsters have always been on the forefront of innovation.

...And where rarely thrilled by it :lol:
They can't quite match the guiny-pigs, though.

 

[tomek]

14.I thought that orbital velocities around moon were slower.

Well, aren't they? :huh:

 

[Ghostrider]

i also built a compartment for my sisters hamster to ride in but neither my father or my sister would allow me to launch it (i dont think the hamster would have been too thrilled either, they're hardly the most pioneering species!!)

Don't tell my hamsters that. They're quite the curious type.
Anyway, they could be the ideal crewmembers for a small capsule: they eat mostly dried foodstuff with some long shelf-life and require little water, and can take some gs. They're also smart enough that you could actually teach a hamsternaut to activate some rudimentary controls.
The only problem is that like all rodents, they're neophobes and don't like being introduced to new stuff all of a sudden. You would need to train your hamsternaut corps as soon as they're weaned.

 

[Pilot7893]

I thought the space shuttle took off like a plane into space. That's the classic misconception about the space shuttle. I also thought it landed on the moon.:fool:I also thought the space station (I didn't know the words ISS of Mir) the shuttle would also go to was just hovering above the earth standing still and the shuttle would just point straight up to get to it. and of course EVERYONE with a brain knows the shuttle can use it's main engines after ET sep. That's how it lands again! a bit of retro fire and it lands like a Harrier! Orbiter managed to crush my childhood dreams in 1 Atlantis launch with disaterous results. The plan? take off straight up with the unneeded tank and boosters to the ISS which should have been right above canaveral, refuel, head off to the moon, land, take off again, and land back at canaveral!:lol: And here's a great way to get passenger flights to space. Just put some airplane seats inside the payload bay! I actually wrote a letter to NASA suggesting this when I was about 7. 4 years later, I finally got a reply, blabing about how the letter was in the "Wrong format" to be admitted. Well, my parents fg EXPLODED in a reply, telling how I was only seven when I wrote it. And how did they react? A letter to my parents (a lot quiker than the reply to mine) about how THAT letter was also in the wrong format.