So now we are getting a glance of how things went on Mars in the period directly following the end of season three. In short? Not well.
I look forward to the director’s cut. It will be 10 hours longer across the season, but is just the regular show with the latency left in. You might see people at Mission Control playing Candy Crush or making a coffee.
I’ve got to say I’m not enjoying Joel Kinnamen’s portrayal of Baldwin this season. I know he’s trying to play ‘old’, and he’s sneaking the occasional toke, but it comes across as him looking drunk or confused all the time. And he always looks slovenly, which is not what you usually see in commanding officers.
His judgement is terrible, but it always was. The problem with that is there is no way he’d still be commanding a base in his 70’s after the string of screw-ups he’s had.
And that abortive romance between him and the Russian woman who was at least 30 years his junior was cringe inducing.
Other than that, I’m enjoying the season.
There is a fan theory going around that he got kuru from eating Danny.
I don’t know if I would describe Ed as slovenly; grizzled is more how I would describe him. Ed definitely needs to ride off into the sunset. That tongue lashing he got from Dani at the end of the episode was long overdue.
The scene where Palmer snitches on Ed to Dani was done pretty well; they conveyed a good sense of the tension Palmer felt in having to rat on his boyhood hero.
They also made an attempt to flesh out Dev a little this week; we got to meet his mama, who he has some serious issues with.
Looking forward to seeing how they try to capture this Goldilocks asteroid.
I predict it will take three attempts. The first one will come in too hot, the second one will be too cold.
They are trying to figure out to stop it from spinning. It will be fun to see how they plan to get it into Mars orbit. I hope they don’t wimp out on the science and assume it will just ‘go into orbit’ if they impart the correct velocity where it is. In actuality it needs to get into a Mars transfer orbit, then it needs to be placed in orbit around Mars with another burn. Then circularized with yet another.
If they don’t have the capability to stop it from spinning easily, they aren’t moving it into orbit around Mars. But I’m guessing they’ll cut some corners there.
So Aleida is going to the Soviet Union.
Too bad she doesn’t know anyone who lives there.
Everyone’s very passionate about the pen nib market.
I think I know what is wrong with Ed Baldwin–he has radiation sickness from that big window in his quarters.
So, assuming that iridium is the only thing mined from the asteroid (since it is the only thing being mentioned) and assuming that 70,000 tons is metric, with the projected revenue from mining it claimed to be 20 trillion dollars that means they expect it to sell at $285 a gram, or nearly $9,000 a troy ounce.
After 3 1/2 seasons, my wife and I finally bailed on this show (something we probably should have done 1 1/2 seasons ago. It’s not even the bad science. All of the characters are just miserable people. Tell me when the Beatles reunion happens and maybe I’ll check it out again.
Well, the latest episode seems to imply that Elvis is still alive in 2003.
Personally, the other M-7 nations have to be run by absolute morons if they can’t see that the Russians are going to sabotage the capture of Goldilocks. The Russians have a virtual monopoly on iridium; why in the hell would they ever want a huge supply that they don’t fully control coming to Earth?
Ed’s embracing of the workers seems a little quick to develop; he wants to make life miserable for Dani, but it still seems kinda out of character for him.
There will probably be some sabotage that leaves the asteroid on a collision course with Earth, with some last minute heroics by some person or group that needs a redemption arc. Maybe Ed will sacrifice himself, or maybe the union workers will prove their worth. (Or maybe it’ll just hit Earth, that’s the kind of screw-up that tends to happen on this show.)
Interesting thought. Maybe Margo will scuttle their plan, pay for doing so with her life, and thereby gaining some redemption.
The elephant in the room is that unless they can find new markets for iridium, bringing that much to Earth will simply collapse the price.
Wealth isn’t money, it’s the things you have and can make. What does 70,000 tons of iridium bring to the table? How does it make us wealthier? What can we build with it that we couldn’t before?
I agree that the show is getting less interesting. I don’t buy the ‘company town’ on Mars thing. These aren’t coolies or manual laborers that are interchangeable. They are trained people living in a very expensive place. To get people there, you have to pay them well, and to keep them there and working hard you have to continue to pay them well.
The proper example for them to have used would have been something like a deep sea oil platform or a remote mine or oil well in the first world. The people working onthose projects are all paid extremely well. Hazardous, uncomfortable places require high pay to attract talent.
In a better story, Miles would have done six months on Mars and made enough money to live with his family for six months off. That’s how it often works for oil workers. They get a contract up north and make a year’s salary in a few months.
It doesn’t really matter because an abundance of iridium has already been established as a MacGuffin that would lead to the next technological revolution. I mean, it’s already 2003 for Pete’s sake, and these people are still using Newtons!
That’s the example they already used, Miles is a former oil rig worker and Helios was looking for workers with that kind of experience. Maybe since the fossil fuel industry collapsed because of fusion technology and all those people lost their jobs, Helios can hire them on the relative cheap.
I thought a large part of the mars colony was supposed to be to support asteroid mining. Miles ended up in a crap job because the capture attempt failed and everyone is missing out on their bonuses.
So why do they suddenly need 6000 extra spacecraft and a dozen or more new designs just to do what they were planning to do anyway?
Excellent point. Plus, once they put it in Mars orbit (along with the two mineable possible asteroids already in Mars orbit) there is no special and rapid deadline for mining it, they could do it as slowly as they needed.
I think it’s because the original idea was to use the mined resources from asteroids for Happy Valley itself, not to send it back to Earth. That would allow Happy Valley to become self-sustaining and grow much faster.
The iridium changes that calculus because they want to transport it back to Earth which will require a whole new fleet of ships and whatnot.