Way Stations In Space (1961)
Pretty cool movie, but the
physics is very bad. It is
obvious that no real scientist
reviewed the script. The two
worse errors : rocket planes
(they showed an X-15) were
carried up in a plane to
escape (much of) the drag of
the Earth's atmosphere, not
the Earth's gravity and the
gravitational acce
more

Way Stations In Space (1961)
Pretty cool movie, but the
physics is very bad. It is
obvious that no real scientist
reviewed the script. The two
worse errors : rocket planes
(they showed an X-15) were
carried up in a plane to
escape (much of) the drag of
the Earth's atmosphere, not
the Earth's gravity and the
gravitational acceleration of
a space station is still
directed towards the center of
the Earth, etc. - the
direction is not changed by
motion. But the engineering is
pretty correct for 1961. This
movie pretty much shows how
NASA planned to get to the
Moon before Kennedy announced
the goal of doing it during
the 1960's. Since 9 years
wasn''t enough time to build
all of these pieces, we
decided to go straight to the
Moon with Apollo, and the
space station and shuttle
plans were shelved. It is
interesting to think what
would have happened if he
hadn't said 'within this
decade'; we might have had
space stations in the
mid-1960's and a space shuttle
by 1970 or so.

Category Howto & DIY

Tags Way, Stations, In, Space