Comments on: A long time ago, in a low Earth orbit far, far away…

By: Irishman

Irishman — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:56:11 +0000

Folcrom said:
>I wouldnâ€™t worry about it.
Press releases and newspaper/tv reports often contain stuff that is â€œtechnicallyâ€ wrong or simply â€œplain stupidâ€.
Happens all the time. Makes no sense to get the knickers in a twist about it.

Uh, Fulcrom, have you looked at this site at all? It’s called “[b]Bad[/b] Astronomy” for a reason.

Phil, while both “hitchhike” and “through the Galaxy” are technically wrong, I think this phrase counts as an homage to Douglas Adams, and perhaps is thus exempt from literal accuracy.

By: Harold

Harold — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 19:14:37 +0000

But what part of this press release is actually wrong? The “hitchhike” part? Technically, yes, as Ruth noted above. The “through the galaxy” part? Technically, no, as I and others have noted above. I think some folks are being unneccessarily pedantic here. Or are people just announcing that they have never heard of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams? If so, they must be baffled by the comments about towels, Vogon poetry, Pan Galactic Gargleblasters, and throwing yourself at the ground and missing, and I feel sorry that they have missed out on this. Personally, I’m delighted that somebody managed to get this language into a press release.

By: Astroprof

Astroprof — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:25:51 +0000

Yeah, it really gets me when an organization with NASA’s reputation puts out things like this. Their PR people all too often don’t understand what they are trying to promote. And, since it is coming from NASA, everyone else takes it as authoritative, even when it is wrong. Sad. They should at least require their PR people to have had an astronomy course, or something.

By: Ruth

Ruth — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:08:26 +0000

If you’re going to find fault it should be with the use of ‘hitchhike’ as applied to a metal cargo tag which is officially being included in the payload. )

By: spacewriter

spacewriter — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:07:18 +0000

Folcrom said: “I wouldnâ€™t worry about it.
Press releases … often contain stuff that is â€œtechnicallyâ€ wrong or simply â€œplain stupidâ€.”

Hey, do you have some solid evidence for press releases often containing wrong information? (I won’t argue as much with some TV reports being wrong though)

I actually work on science press releases quite a lot for several observatories, and believe me, we work very hard to make them scientifically accurate, only to have them misstated or quoted wrongly in some news stories.

As I’ve said elsewhere, we can’t be all science-happy here and then turn around and be less than precise when flinging around accusations and charges of “imprecision” in others. Ya dig?

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:33:31 +0000

Doh, bit of a gaff from NASA there. They should also send up some Vogon Poetry.

By: Sticks

Sticks — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:44:11 +0000

Maybe some one has been at the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters a bit too much

I knew somebody who once tried to creat the nearest real world equivelant

IIRC the recipie was: Bluebols, Southern Comfort, Benedictine, Vodka, Babysham

and a chunk of dry ice to get the smokey effect they had on the TV series.