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9999px

I got very excited to see someone who hasn't heard of the Space Shuttle. It's quite the feat of engineering.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2011/07/the-history-of-the...

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Relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/1053/

But I also have to admit I cannot fathom how someone could have not heard of the space shuttle? It was only retired in 2011?

9 years ago. I have a 9 year old who wouldn't know what it was exactly if asked. But she'd recognise a Falcon landing.

I'm sure there are teenagers out there who are discovering the shuttle just now. This thread might have been started by one.

Would those same teenagers also not know that the ISS exists or that humans went to the moon 50 years ago?

What kind of odd question is that?

If, as your tone implies, you believe that every teenager knows everything and it's not possible for some of them to have not heard or these things, then you must in fact be a teenager yourself.

I don't think it's unreasonable to be surprised that a teenager (at least, an American teenager) isn't aware of such a thing. They've managed to get through school without once being shown a photo of the space shuttle? Not one blurb? Never seen it in a TV commercial? Photograph?

It was certainly never mentioned when I was in school. I knew about it, but I bet some of my classmates didn't. And it hadn't even been retired yet.

Challenger was mentioned, but only because I brought in a newspaper clipping for the 20th anniversary.

Try asking random strangers what stars are, and which is farther away, the stars or the moon.

Prepare to be disillusioned about humanity.

I have seen it before, but I'll admit I didn't know its name. In my language we call it the "space bus". Maybe my question sounded like I didn't even know what is the Space Shuttle because I'm not a native English speaker and couldn't think of a better way of asking "why does this spaceship look like a plane while others don't?".

Ah I see, my apologies! For what it's worth, your English is so good that it didn't even cross my mind that you weren't a native speaker.

Yes the space shuttle was designed to be partially re-usable. The "plane" bit would come back down to Earth and land on a (very long) runway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOxZsbyjSb8

The same way someone might not have heard of Yuri Gagarin, the first person to reach outer space.[0] In the US, we only hear about the first person to step foot on the moon. I certainly didn't know Yuri Gagarin's name; I had to Google it. I wouldn't even recognize it if I heard it.

Or the One-China policy.[1]

Or that the United States doesn't have a prime minister. Ever told someone you're from the US and been asked who your PM is? They're not referring to your project manager.

Or that they might actually be the Virgin Islands' president without realizing it.[2]

Or any of the following websites, which are among the top 10 most visited websites according to Alexa:[3]

3. Tmall

5. QQ

6. Baidu

7. Sohu

8. Tmall login

9. Taobao

10: 360.cn

In this case, it sounds like the person who made the comment knew of the space shuttle; they just didn't know much about it or recognize it by name. I bet many readers here could say the same for many of the aforementioned items.

Yet if you went to China and asked about Tmall, I bet you'd get some funny looks. I don't really know for sure, though; I'd never heard of it until today. Sure, I know of Taobao, and I could've guessed that the T in Tmall stood for either Tencent or Taobao, but heck if I know what they do. I misspelled it as `Tmail` initially and only realized my mistake after Googling it.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy

[2]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-president-virgin-isl...

[3]: https://www.alexa.com/topsites

And I got to feel that I've very old.

My four year old plays almost daily with his model of Atlantis. Both his older sister saw Atlantis at the KSP museum after watching a Falcon 9 launch.

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