Harlan, like many others who've bought the no-sound-in-space okeydoke,
did ask for that, yes. Then I figured I'd try and get the straight skinny
on this, and sent messages around to folks at JPL, NASA, and elsewhere, and
y'know what? There IS sound in space. The conditions and circumstances
are fairly specific -- proximity to nebulae, proximity to the air-bubble
contained in a big ship when it explodes, such that it can reach you and
provide sound -- but there's a LOT of grey in this discussion, and lots of
reason to think there IS sound. We've just all bought into it without
really doing the math. Freeman Dyson, who currently hold Einstein's
chair, came back with many circumstances in which you'd hear sound in
space (and we've used them). Folks from JPL and the High Altitude
Observatory reported that when Pioneer broke the speed of sound, it
registered a bow-shock of a sonic boom *while in space*.

I've got something like two dozen email messages from credible and
well-grounded scientists who said, in essence, everybody ASSUMED this, but
nobody ever really bothered to ASK if it were true, and do the math. I'll
eventually upload the file when I get around to cleaning it up.

jms