Rene-NASA-Mooned-America

Explaining Heat & Cold / Chap. 10 p. 81
EXPLAINING HEAT & COLD
The single greatest misconception we have about space is that it is cold. NASA, that great
science machine, has never done a single thing to dispel this great myth. If anything they
have promulgated this myth for their own advantage. Even though one definition of cold is
the absence of heat, space is an absolute exception to this rule.
As a kid reading thousands of science fiction stories I would find a repeated situation
similar to this, "Jay Vordak was in serious trouble. He had been able to extract the Krentak
Ray generator from the vault on the Vulsa ship but the vault guard robot had smashed his
suit heater in the last seconds of the fight. It was as dead as the robot. The ray would save his
people from being enslaved by the Vulsa only if, in the next few minutes, he could reach his
ship hidden amongst the huge boulders on this barren rocky asteroid. He could feel the bone
numbing cold of space rapidly sucking the heat from his body."
Until I began to write this book I never realized that space is neither cold nor hot. Only
matter can have these attributes and space is the absence of matter. Science claims that heat
is a measurement of molecular activity. Since there are very few atoms or molecules to be
agitated in space, space can neither be hot nor cold. As a near perfect vacuum, it is, at the
same time, the greatest insulator and the best heat sink in the universe. It exists, unaffected,
next to the incredibly hot surfaces of stars. It remains just as completely unaffected near the
absolute zero temperatures found on comets traveling through interstellar space.
Before we can understand what happens on a space ship, or to a space suit, we need to
understand a bit about heat. This section is a little refresher course for those who once
knew a lot about heat, and a beginner's course for those who only know that ice is cold and a
fire is hot.
Temperature — The measurement of the molecular activity in a mass; the sensible heat
energy in a substance.
Heat is measured in degrees by various temperature scales. Despite an act-of-Congress
many years ago that demanded we adopt the metric system and use the Celsius (C) temperature
scale, most Americans still subconsciously think in terms of Fahrenheit (F) temperatures,
and also in the English system of weights and measures. We cling to it, not because it
is superior, but because we were brought up using it and we can instantly visualize its
various units.
We know an ounce of weight; a mile of distance and a degree of Fahrenheit temperature.
We Americans do not yet think in terms of grams, kilometers nor degrees Celsius. The
Fahrenheit scale places the freezing point of water at 32° F and the boiling point at 212° F.
This scale is awkward and admittedly hard to calculate with, but we've used it from our
earliest schooling, and in this case familiarity breeds ease of use.
The Celsius scale calls the freezing point of water zero and the boiling point 100°C. It is
simple for those brought up using it, but confusing to those of us who weren't.
NASA MOONED AMERICA! / Rene