I’ve been watching the “Mars” series on the National Geographic Channel. It’s a good combination of science, technology, politics, economics and psychology… and raw survival. I especially enjoyed the last epode’s parallels with the McMurdo station in Antarctica. Anyone else watching?
(I still haven’t figured out how they managed to transport all that mascara to another planet.)
We watched the first two episodes. It is still being recorded. Perhaps I’ll give it another shot during the holidays.
Why didn’t they send two guys in the vehicle to get supplies from the Russian camp?
Is it available on YouTube?
I’ve been watching and I quite enjoy it; especially after having watched The Martian. The mix of today’s interviews and footage with the future story is cool. No idea if it’s on Youtube, but I’m sure it’s online somewhere…
I saw the last 10 minutes of one of the episodes the other night. I’m looking forward to reading what others here think to see if I want to invest more time or not.
Every so often I would look through Cafe Society looking for a post on Mars. I thought that someone would have posted something prior to this post, but…
I’ve been catching parts of it and up until now it’s been a real struggle to stay with it. The woman in the first three episodes was doing most of the talking just seemed to drone on and on and on.
There was one part where she went into a room where there was a fire and proceeded to put the fire out while others waited outside the room.
Now a fire on board a space craft or on the surface of Mars should be pretty damn serious, but watching the fire left me with no suspense whatsoever. Hey, how about a little suspense here. It was just too obvious that they were all going to survive. But still, I can watch a non-fiction, knowing full well what’s going to happen and be on the edge of my seat. But not on Mars.
I will admit I have not stuck with a complete episode to date, has there been four, or is it five? I have either started from the beginning and then lost interest, or picked up the show part way through and sometimes stuck with it to the end.
It is a pretty dry show with bland actors and script. My advice, don’t waste your time.
I understand that they need to generate drama, but some of the things are just a bit ridiculous.
Episode 5 has a guy opening an airlock that apparently has no form of safety override/lockout or other form of prevention. A simple finger print scanner locking out unauthorized people would have sufficed.
What was this kookamunga doing there in the first place? Crazy guy was obviously crazy. It didn’t take annoying french doctor to figure that one out. And you don’t need the best minds in science to monitor plants, you need a farmer, or someone who can follow the directions of someone who is monitoring the plants remotely. This is Mars, not Alpha Centauri. Longest one way message is about 24 minutes? It is unlikely that plants need faster response times than that.
Power was low because something happened to a junction box. So, two people took the rover and outside the compound in the storm. I would figure that by this time they would have setup radio towers to triangulate positions down to the millimeter. Yet the guy who remains in the rover tells the person walking to the junction box it is within 25 meters (or something to that effect). They also don’t bring enough cable to allow the guy to walk the required distance. He disconnects from the cable and starts randomly walking through the dust storm! No thought to grab a bunch of rocks near by and stack them like bread crumbs to mark his trail or going back to the rover to get some more cable:smack:, or a compass or something equally obvious to those who might be a bit more practically minded.
And why was he sweating like a hog in his environment suit?
In an earlier episode when one of the astronauts was descending into an old lava flume. Those topside kept asking for updates. But zombie woman just breathed hard not responding. Yet they keep sending her down rather than pulling her back up and tell her to get with the flipping program and communicate.
Everyone talks in such a monotone voice. If I was on Mars I’d be excited as hell and would show it.
I understand Mars will be difficult, but not unduly so. The only people who should be going are problem solvers. Engineers and technicians who can follow directions and fix shit that breaks. Not necessarily the best minds, but those who can build what has already been tested extensively on Earth before it arrived on Mars.