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Writing AH. Anachronisms Part 5: Fly Me to the Moon

One of my favorite examples of Jupiter’s moons numbers being in flux is Revenge of the Cybermen from 1970s Doctor Who using the pre-Voyager number but being set centuries later. One of the novels later retconned it by having a number of the moons taken out to improve the feng shui of the solar system in the centuries since!

On the topic of planets, I was surprised that Vulcan didn’t get a mention given that Le Verrier championed its existence.
 
Hendryk said:
A small nitpick: that's Urbain.
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Thanks - amended.

I really enjoyed reading this one, for obvious reasons. That quiz question has annoyed me for decades now.
 
"Well of course we wouldn't use a mythical name" is such a break from how we just think of naming space stuff; if we'd had Saturn followed by Herschell Leverrier, and Tombaugh, what would NASA have chosen for space programme names now myths are out?
 
Charles EP M. said:
"Well of course we wouldn't use a mythical name" is such a break from how we just think of naming space stuff; if we'd had Saturn followed by Herschell Leverrier, and Tombaugh, what would NASA have chosen for space programme names now myths are out?
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Ceres was originally 'Ceres Ferdinandea' so I could actually see a situation where Uranus goes for about a century of being called called 'Herschel- Georgium Sidus' as a compromise, and later political reasons seeing the overtly political name for the planet get dropped (Perhaps because Neptune is just Leverrier as political turmoil in France makes any one person unsuitable?)

I think you probably get a much earlier pattern of the late 20th Century practice of naming Asteroids and such after various figures.

Pallas probably becomes Obers, Juno is Harding but then Obers discovers another asteroid so presumably another of the Celestial Police gets the name instead- von Zach as the original organiser?

I suspect by the early 20th Century we're getting to the stage where there's a number of ministers for Science or University Chancellors who have a minor asteroid or moon named after them.
 
Was interested to discover during a visit to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago that the search for the ninth planet has resumed (here given the placeholder Planet Nine rather than the far sexier Planet X), theorised to be in an extreme trans-Neptunian elliptical orbit.

So potentially any works now written set into the future referring to the eight planets of the solar system may wind up outpaced by science... again.

M_Kresal said:
One of my favorite examples of Jupiter’s moons numbers being in flux is Revenge of the Cybermen from 1970s Doctor Who using the pre-Voyager number but being set centuries later. One of the novels later retconned it by having a number of the moons taken out to improve the feng shui of the solar system in the centuries since!

On the topic of planets, I was surprised that Vulcan didn’t get a mention given that Le Verrier championed its existence.
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It's a very Hitchhiker's Guide explanation, and I far prefer explaining a minor discrepancy in a work with an off-hand, joking reference in a spin-off novel than making a $300m film because for three decades fans refused to believe a character could make a mistake.
Charles EP M. said:
"Well of course we wouldn't use a mythical name" is such a break from how we just think of naming space stuff; if we'd had Saturn followed by Herschell Leverrier, and Tombaugh, what would NASA have chosen for space programme names now myths are out?
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Corporate sponsorships.

"This is one small step for a man, brought to you by our sponsor: Lucky Strike."
Alex Richards said:
Ceres was originally 'Ceres Ferdinandea' so I could actually see a situation where Uranus goes for about a century of being called called 'Herschel- Georgium Sidus' as a compromise, and later political reasons seeing the overtly political name for the planet get dropped (Perhaps because Neptune is just Leverrier as political turmoil in France makes any one person unsuitable?)

I think you probably get a much earlier pattern of the late 20th Century practice of naming Asteroids and such after various figures.

Pallas probably becomes Obers, Juno is Harding but then Obers discovers another asteroid so presumably another of the Celestial Police gets the name instead- von Zach as the original organiser?

I suspect by the early 20th Century we're getting to the stage where there's a number of ministers for Science or University Chancellors who have a minor asteroid or moon named after them.
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In 1930 the search for Planet X comes to the end with the discovery of Hoover, named for the US President. It's downgraded to a dwarf planet for quicker and with much less controversy.
 
RyanF said:
In 1930 the search for Planet X comes to the end with the discovery of Hoover, named for the US President. It's downgraded to a dwarf planet for quicker and with much less controversy.
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I can think of an even worse possibility, going the Richard E. Byrd route and naming astronomical bodies after one's corporate sponsors. Planet Rockefeller, Ford Nebula, and by the present day we'd have Musk Cluster and Bezos Supernova.
 
My mother, who was 31 when the first man landed on the Moon, often told me when I was into space as a boy that before the landings even of unmanned vehicles, the renowned British astronomer [Sir] Patrick Moore had expressed the opinion that off crater rims, the surface of the Moon might simply consist of dust like a huge desert. As a result, with much lower gravity, a landing vehicle might simply sink a long way into the Moon's surface. I imagine there is an alternative where his view became the gospel one and so Moon landings were delayed or never occurred.
 
Alexander Rooksmoor said:
My mother, who was 31 when the first man landed on the Moon, often told me when I was into space as a boy that before the landings even of unmanned vehicles, the renowned British astronomer [Sir] Patrick Moore had expressed the opinion that off crater rims, the surface of the Moon might simply consist of dust like a huge desert. As a result, with much lower gravity, a landing vehicle might simply sink a long way into the Moon's surface. I imagine there is an alternative where his view became the gospel one and so Moon landings were delayed or never occurred.
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That was a common theory at the time, but that's one reason why NASA did precursor robotic missions like Surveyor 1, which measured the impact force to try to gauge the nature of the surface.
 
Watching QI is a good example of the impermanence of astronomical knowledge, with the recurring question “How many moons does the Earth have?” Depending upon which series you’re watching, the answer is 2, 5, 18000, or zero.



OK, the last answer is an argument that the Earth/Moon system is a set of binary planets as neither have cleared out their orbit on their own. And conveniently forgets Cruithne and the other objects that have been called moons in previous series.
 
Hendryk said:
I can think of an even worse possibility, going the Richard E. Byrd route and naming astronomical bodies after one's corporate sponsors. Planet Rockefeller, Ford Nebula, and by the present day we'd have Musk Cluster and Bezos Supernova.
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Galileo tried to do this too with what we now call the Galilean moons of course (the "Medici", to him)
 
What if there are other intelligent races in our galaxy, but humans are the only one who have a Moon like this, and everyone else thinks we’re weird for the whole dualist culture thing?

This is fascinating. Cue the Vulcan word for human being lunatic!
 
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