Myths eclipse the real facts about NASA's dramatic rescue of three astronauts aboard the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft; Hollywood movies have a hit-and-miss track record of depicting the realities of interstellar exploration.

The real facts of the nuclear age are clouded by myth. Manhattan played a major role in the Manhattan Project; there were closer calls to World War III than the Cuban Missile Crisis; America's nuclear security hinges on a football and a biscuit.