Reality Check by Dave Whamond for May 12, 2012

Houston we have a problem.

I hate to be pedantic, but the Lunar Module left the legs and base behind when it returned to the Command Module orbiting the moon.

Good one, Ralph! That’s one giant pun for squirrel kind.

During all those years of watching Star Treks, it never occurred to me that the WHOOSH you hear when the Enterprise takes off wouldn’t be audible in space. I had to read about it on a fan website. Partypooper! I love that whoosh!

OK, but you also wouldn’t be just sitting in space where you could listen to it. If you were in a ship nearby, the vibrations of the Enterprise taking off could still be transferred to your ship and you’d hear that.

No. There would be nothing to transfer the vibration. The atmosphere does that, too.

Solar “Wind” is a misnomer. There is no atmosphere in space, so sound cannot travel and since vibrations depend on an atmosphere to propagate, they cannot travel either.

Solar Wind made up of charged particles, not air molecules

http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/space-environment/3-what-is-solar-wind.html

sfreader1: The solar wind wouldn’t, but the rocket exhaust as it left would. Look what the retrorockets did when landing.