I blame Star Wars for this.

The original Battlestar Galactica from the 1970s also had no clue what a galaxy was. Gee, guys, crack open an astronomy text for 5 minutes, would ya?

Like or hate Star Trek, one thing you must always give them credit for is that they knew what a galaxy is. The Barrier, on the other hand...

Miles O'Brien essentially took over from that poor fellow who was killed in a car accident just weeks before John Glenn's second space flight in 1998. So I have to wonder just how ready and willing he really was for the job? Plus reading off a teleprompter must become something of a rote task after a while.

Maybe it's just the era I grew up in, but give me Jules Bergman, Walter Cronkite, and Frank Reynolds for my space news announcers any day. Today's talking heads and bubble-headed bleach blonds have no feel for anything past Brittney Spears latest antic.