News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Carl Sagan's idea for Contact video game (1983) [video] by Zikes on Friday November 13, 2015 @04:22PM (#10562482)
You're assuming the goal is to teach astrophysics, rather than astronomy. If we're just trying to teach the space equivalent of geography, the physics and plot don't matter so much as the physical locations and nomenclature.
Re:Carl Sagan's idea for Contact video game (1983) [video] by Mithaldu on Friday November 13, 2015 @04:25PM (#10562495)
Astronomy is the study of the laws of stars, not of their names, regardless of how close "nomy" sounds to "name".

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy

Additionally Sagan was most certainly conflating it with astrophysics, as is commonly done, and evidenced by his mention of "stellar evolutionary events".

Re:Carl Sagan's idea for Contact video game (1983) [video] by nether on Friday November 13, 2015 @04:54PM (#10562648)
That's barely even astronomy. At the university level, astronomy coursework is basically math.