h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

jack karaouace(?????)

and gene some one or other they took a road trip and along the way wrote some books and were the inspiration for a film(fear and loathing in las vagar i might think)

they were the ispiration for the beatnick generation and turned the youth of america into junkies along with novels such as on the road naked lunch and catcher in the rye?????

WILD STAB IN THE DARK!!!!!!?????

Thanks Taff A-gent for your distillation of 20th century culture in America.

What a jumble of names and facts tossed liberally into a time machine gone horribly off tilt.


I know now how I must sound to Brits when I get my Sex Pistols mixed up with my Duke of
Sandwitches storming Hadrians Wall with Pooh and that Yeats the Butler guy.


~jwf~

Ya want with that?

PS: The name you are missing is Hunter S Thompson and considering
how he lived and died I'm not surprised all those ancillary factoids
got scrambled. Jack Kerouac was the visionary saint who pointed out
that bog roll was a self deluding exercise in futility and that soap
and water was the only way to ensure proper toilet hygiene. All the
rest you can toss out with the bath water, including that sooky baby
Holden Caulfield and all them crazy junkies.

Waaaaaaay off track, Taff.

I'll write up an answer tomorrow, unless someone wants to keep guessing

I'm happy for an answer.

Nice of you to wait for me ~ I'll risk a klaxon

Does this refer to them repairing the moon-buggy with duct tape ? I'm afraid I don't know who Jack and Gene were, but I do know that on one of the moon missions they damaged the moon buggy - a mudguard got broken off and they had to repair it because the dust just goes on forever in 1/6 gravity.

One of the astronauts repaired it with duct tape.

That's right - I thought you might want to go for it

The Seaside Challenge in the title involves the Apollo 17 mission astronauts Eugene "Gene" Cernan and Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, who landed the lunar module Challenger on the edge of the Sea of Serenity. One of their buggies' rear fender was damaged when they unloaded it; not a problem on Earth, but a mission-threatening disaster on the moon.

Moon dust, though it's fine as dust, is not soft - there's no weather or water to erode it. Each speck of dust has very sharp edges, and is extremely abrasive - it would scratch their equipment, including the space suit visors, making it hard to see, and the high plume of dust settling on the spacesuits made them darker. That means they absorbed more solar energy, potentially overheating the astronauts. (There's a reason those suits are white!) It also worked its way into all the mechanical parts.

So mission control had them repair the fender by taping laminated maps over it with plain old duct tape, and the mission went ahead as planned

Full story here:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/21apr_ducttape.htm

I'd forgotten all about this one - it would have been over a lot sooner if I had answered it in post 7

I'm surprised that it lasted so long.

A new day and and we learn something new.

I suppose people just forgot about it.

Moondust is fascintating stuff; might be worth an entry of its own!

Not many points here:

Feisor +1 Good Sport/DGI
Deke +1 Good Sport/DGI
Teasswill -5 "Water"
McKay +3 Moon Buggy

Thank you!

What I am most proud of though is my self control ... I kept wanting to post things like,

"I'm not going to be a rat and give that answer."

and

"It's a real rat race isn't it?"

oops!

Wrong thread!



First day back at w*rk after the holiday - can you tell?

Yes

I'm just want to know what was the question?

hee hee hee.