Primer for Apollo novices

[Donnie B.]

http://xkcd.com/1133/

Oh, NOW I understand!

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I don't understand.

[Echnaton]

It reads like an IRS income tax form.  Every word seems right but it somehow doesn't really mean anything in particular.

[Donnie B.]

Geez, people, it's spelled out for you right there at the top of the cartoon:

"Explained using only the ten hundred words people use most often"

I thought this crowd would be all over it -- it's just what we need to get the idea across to the typical HB!

[gtvc]

Cool 

[ka9q]

Cute, but being the nitpicker I am I just have to point out some errors:

There were no computers in the service module. It gave people air, water and power. And it helps them drive around in space and talk to everyone left behind. Fire also comes out the bottom. Not as much as from the first, second and third parts that fall off, but if it doesn't work they will be staying in space....

As far as I know, the IU and CM each had one computer...

[Echnaton]

Geez, people, it's spelled out for you right there at the top of the cartoon:

"Explained using only the ten hundred words people use most often"

I thought this crowd would be all over it -- it's just what we need to get the idea across to the typical HB!

I think everyone understood.   It is funny because the Saturn V is rocket science and can't be explained simply.   Sort of like filling out tax forms.  But get the idea across to HBs?   They would see the humorous intention and dismiss anything else.  Just as they always do. 

[Echnaton]

As far as I know, the IU and CM each had one computer...

This diagram from Wikipedia names two IU computers and various systems that might generically be called computers. 

[Donnie B.]

Cute, but being the nitpicker I am I just have to point out some errors:

There were no computers in the service module. It gave people air, water and power.

Possibly "power" and "electricity" are not in the top thousand, but "computer" is.  I didn't see a link to a list of the available words so I can't say for sure.  If so, that was probably the closest thing available to describe the energy-production role of the SM.

It says something about the modern world that "computer" is a more-used word than either of those others.  Now, if we just had those flying cars, it really would be the 21st century.

[ChrLz]

There were no computers in the service module.

I'm guessin' he might have confused that ring with the one a couple of stages down that did contain a pile of computer things for controlling the other things that made the fire and pointed it away from the ground and towards interesting stuff..

That's if my memory serves..

[raven]

An error I noted was the the cold breathing type air was not, as it said, used for "burning" in the service module.

[Echnaton]

An error I noted was the the cold breathing type air was not, as it said, used for "burning" in the service module.

I think the burning was the closest he could get to use in the fuel cells. 

[raven]

I think the burning was the closest he could get to use in the fuel cells.

I considered that, but considering it was exactly the same word he used for rocket combustion, well, I would have thought he would have used qualifiers like he did with the different kinds of 'air'.
The whole thing reminds me of Uncleftish Beholding, a text on basic atomic theory written in only words of Germanic origin.