Strange question I know, however there was a British reality TV show a few years back which had people believing they were on board the real space-shuttle while in orbit. The simulated shuttle used in the show had quite a bit of background noise, such as mechanical noises and a constant background roar like you get on an airplane.
I always envisaged the interior of a spacecraft in orbit as being fairly silent, whats it actually like?
btw I found that reality show interesting in that it seemed to me to backfire quite spectacularly on the producers, for the first few episodes they set it up for the audience to laugh mockingly at the gullible fools who thought they were actually going into place but made the mistake of choosing people who were humble and likable, if not that bright, and the general public started rooting for them. The problem of course being how they and the audience would react when they (the participants) found out it was all a giant hoax and they weren’t actually getting to fulfill their dream, instead they framed the final reveal as showing the contestants as conquering heroes instead of figures of fun. Not what seemed to be originally planned.
ISTR at least in the early/planning stages the International Space Station at least, it turned out it was going to be “pretty damn loud”. Enough to actually be a concern. Obviously, peoples value of pretty damn loud varies, but it certainly differs from “hey, its pretty quite in here”.
Space Cadets, it was called. It got slated by people round here, ISTR, but I loved it. Once of the contestants was a mole, whose IQ was probably greater than the rest of them combined, but even he seemed to get quite caught up in it.
OTOH, the audition process was supposedly set up to select the most scientifically illiterate and gullible people, the folks most likely to fall for something like this. Being an overeducated engineer and skeptic (and working with folks of similar persuasion), I guess I get a warped perspective on the knowledge level and critical thinking skills of the average joe, so stuff like this (and the Tonight Show’s “Jaywalking” segment) is just depressing…
Average people really do not know anything about the details of space flight. If memory serves they were told that the ascent to orbit was more like a flight in rapidly ascending high-powered plane, something that the producers could plausibly simulate in the machine they had, rather than the bone-shaking near-vertical ride that real Shuttle astronauts experience. They seemed to accept this quite readily.
I didn’t take the hoax theories seriously. If they were faking being regular people they were all brilliant actors.
I’ve encountered misconceptions about space from real people that are easily great enough to account for people being fooled by something like that show.
Knowing how much certain people want to be on TV and how many reality TV stars purposefully act in certain roles to please the producers, I wouldn’t be surprised if the contestants didn’t figure out that the whole thing was a hoax, but played along just to be on TV.
Perhaps, but it seemed more subtle than that. Two of the three who made it on to the “flight” were perhaps a little brighter than the other one, and I remember them raising the possibility that the thing wasn’t real on a couple of occasions, especially later on when the behaviour of the “Russian pilot” got more and more outlandish. But they seemed to dismiss those thoughts quite easily, with the help of the stooge, who quite subtly steered them away from questioning things. The third contestant seemed convinced that is was real, and was just thrilled to be on board.
To me, they simply didn’t behave like people who were faking it. If they were, why raise doubts? Just play along.
As to the OP, I don’t think it’s terribly noisy when the engines aren’t firing. I’ve seen several IMAX movies shot aboard the shuttles, and it never seemed especially loud. I don’t recall any astronauts complaining about noise in any of the NASA reports or essays I’ve read.