| Page 2 of 3 < > |
Father Knows Best?
When Andrei Hardy, 12, asked his dad, Doug, about the heat shield on a Mercury capsule at the National Air and Space Museum, the elder Hardy incorrectly told him that it was steel. Like some fathers, the Bostonian has made up facts when he hasn't known an answer about an exhibit.
(Photos By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
· The Spirit of St. Louis: Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly across the Atlantic. (He was the first to do it solo and nonstop.)
· Friendship 7: John Glenn flew the little capsule to the moon. (He was the first American to orbit the Earth.)
· Sputnik: The Russian satellite carried a dog into space. (The sphere -- the one at the museum is a replica of the one that went into space -- is less than 23 inches in diameter.)
· The Bell X-1: The sound-barrier-busting aircraft was built without landing gear to make it faster. (The wheels are just retracted.)
"I've heard a lot of fathers tell a lot of sons that the rotating litter chair in the Skylab Orbital Workshop was the toilet," Dyke said. "It has a solid metal seat."
It isn't just dads, of course. Mothers are perfectly capable of dispensing misinformation in response to their children's nonstop queries about the world. But the howlers that get repeated with glee in museum break rooms seem to overwhelmingly feature dads getting it wrong.
"I think dads do it more because they don't want to admit it when they don't know something," said Don Lopez, the museum's deputy director. "And they make a lot of mistakes."
The gaffes range from minor, such as Hardy's misapplied steel, to epic whoppers, such as the forklift that went to the moon.
![[slate.com logo]](http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/09/27/GR2007092701096.GIF)
Mobile
Email