Sniffer wrote:
...

I swear this is true. Years back when the Shuttle first launched it's
then new Canadian Arm an Info Babe from CNN or one of the big three
was there to cover the flight by doing an interview of an engineer.
It was immediately obvious that she had not a clue and her fellow
reporters had told her a good question to ask was, "There is some fear
the Shuttle won't be able to achieve orbit because the arm is to
heavy, is that true?"

The guy stiffled a laugh, barely.

Back when NASA still provided a feed of the communications between
ground control and the shuttle crew to the networks I was watching
a launch with some taling head, might have been Dan Rather, and
a Nasa guy providing commentary. Mercifully, they said very little
so we could hear as the chuttle crew noted a high temperature on
their #3 APU and after verifying tha tground control saw the same
thing, received the OK to shut it down. At the time, this had
been a chronic and well publicised problem. IMMEDIATLEY after
ground control told the crew to go ahead and shut down the
overheated unit the talking head guy remarked to the NASA
guy, "Well, it sounds like everything is going OK."

--

FF