The Portrayal of Early Manned Spaceflight in Hidden Figures: A Critique [pdf]

From my reading the critique seems to be sensible, often correcting simple facts such as the launch date of Gagarin or the fact that the rockets always launched eastward, as westward launches are nonsensical for the location of the space centre.<p>I don’t know quite how to feel about it, seems that the book did exaggerate a lot of facts in order to tell a story and perhaps should be categorised as a historical fiction, but that does not quite make the book worthless, as even a good story can be a launching point for many talented young women to get into science.<p>Makes me wonder how many other things I’ve watched and read were edited for the purpose of telling a better story.<p>Certainly not a reason to cite 1984 though.

I dislike the implication that &quot;significance inflation&quot; is new -- the result of &quot;woke-ness&quot;. Did Teddy Roosevelt do all the things he is credited with? Or Thomas Edison? (or Napoleon?) I&#x27;m know little about historians, but I think there is an industry of discovering unrecognized accomplishments, followed by debunking them (what did Steve Jobs invent?).<p>I think it is naive to suggest 1984 is suddenly upon us. Orwell I&#x27;m sure knew that history has been re-written for at least 2500 years.

I&#x27;m well aware that quoting from <i>1984</i> isn&#x27;t exactly innovative, but in my opinion no other quote describes as succinctly what we&#x27;ve seen happening in the name of <i>Diversity, Equity (not equality), Inclusion</i> for a few years now.<p><i>&quot;Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.<p>And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.&quot;</i>