Correction

[mdlbear]

I have just received a correction to my notes for the song "The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" -- the correct quote, which I paraphrase in the last verse, is "...take off and land vertically, the way God and Robert Heinlein intended." It comes from a 1993 article in Analog titled "Single Stage to Infinity" by Arlan Andrews.

I believe my poetic license is still in effect, however, so there's no need to modify the song itself.

Comments

[kshandra]

Hm. D'you have the exact publication date on that article? Because gridlore and I witnessed Pournelle make the God & Heinlein remark at ConFrancisco...this may well be a chicken-and-egg argument.

[mdlbear]

Don't have the date, but here's Arlan's description of the ConFrancisco openning ceremonies, from his email:

Even today Jerry continues to disavow writing that piece, though he told me he wishes he'd said it first. Some of the confusion came about when I used the term to introduce the first DC-X video to a wildly-cheering ConFranscisco WorldCon audience right before opening ceremonies, and then sat down beside Jerry. People for a while thought that I was Larry Niven (we both have beards and I was next to Pournelle), and within an hour I first heard my phrase credited to Jerry. And so it goes, after nearly twelve years.

[kshandra]

Hm. When gridlore and I saw the footage, it was decidedly not before the opening ceremonies (I remember it being run several times during the weekend). But it was definitely Pournelle we heard, because there's no mistaking that man's voice. And he actually said "spaceflight the way God & Robert Heinlein intended," so it's entirely possible/likely that he was quoting, and we just hadn't heard the source material.

*shrug* Matters not, in the long run, 'cause it's not my song. ;-)