Try to imagine their attempt to understand it, socially and technologically. 11/19/25 Fox News:
The estranged wife of a NASA astronaut pleaded guilty to lying to law enforcement over what was alleged to be the first crime to be committed in space.
Summer Worden now faces up to five years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine in relation to the false reports she made about Anne McClain, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.
"In July 2019, Summer Heather Worden alleged her estranged spouse had guessed the password and illegally accessed her bank account while the spouse was deployed to the International Space Station," the office said.
Estranged wife of someone named Anne? How do you go to the teller of a bank from a space station? What is a space station, much less an international space station?
In 1950, only a reader of Astounding Stories or a similar pulp magazine would have even a hint of what a space station was. As to the rest of the story, not a clue. Remember, nobody from those years predicted a telephone computer in everyone's pocket. If you wanted to know something, even the TERMINAL that enabled you to communicate with a huge mainframe somewhere was about the size of a TV, a couple of steamer trunks, and a typewriter keyboard.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I remember writing PL/I using an IBM 3270 terminal to write the Palm Beach Formalwear Information System. DL/1 and CICS. Command lines did not have response time so much as turnaround.
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