And you completely ignore the fact that emerging technologies rarely track with inflation. Your numbers assume zero efficiencies and new technology occurred between the time the rocket was first conceived and 15 years after it was first put to use. If you can’t accept a literary license as simple as “things change”, you’re going to hate this show.
No, I did not. I specifically mentioned a price range, reflecting on a quote from the article that I linked:
The direct flight-related cost is $10 to $20 per pound of payload. Amortizing the research and development cost over 240 flights gives total cost-effectiveness of $20 to $30 per pound of payload.
But even if you toss out my complaint about cost, the episode was still a predictable idiot plot on the design and use of the space hotel. The same goes with the moon base in season 2. Neither of those were designed by engineers with saftey in mind, they were designed by writers with dramatic but avoidable plot points in mind. For instance, the ISS has shutters that cover windows in the case of damage/pressure loss. They are a basic and obvious saftey measure. But plot elements in both season 2 and season 3 have now involved not having them.
At least we can both agree that you’re going to hate this show. Right?
You say that like I have newly discovered it, when I started this thread. In 2019.
I liked seasons 1 and 2 a lot, although I thought the last two episodes of season 2 really went off the rails into implausible action-movie-land. But S3E1 was pretty unforgivably stupid, with the caveat that it might retroactively improve if they’re acknowledging the stupidity.
That is, the whole crisis on the hotel was only a crisis due to unforgivably and implausibly stupid engineering decisions. But… it might be that they’ll be leaning into that and making a point about privatized space tourism. Like, maybe there will be a scene where someone is asking someone from that company why they didn’t have a way to shut off fuel to that thruster, and then they have to admit they cut all sorts of corners that they were warned would make it less safe, yada yada yada.
But… I’m not optimistic they’re going there. The whole hotel scene didn’t feel like “we’re aware that this is happening due to avoidable engineering shortcuts”, it felt like “hey, here’s an unavoidable crisis in space, good thing there’s a brave main character to succeed where two red-shirts failed”.
Still, if we end up with Karen having to confront the fact that she put the life of a bunch of the people she cards most for in the world at risk to increase her profit margin, that could be an interesting storyline. So… we’ll see.
(And yes, I think it’s nearly certain that Ellen’s political career will be derailed due to her sexuality.)
This is my hope, but I fear is just the series starting (or continuing) to jump the shark.
At the very least there should have been escape pods on the outside of the ring, that would have been thrown free by centrifugal force in an emergency.
I was thinking about that, and I suspect that wouldn’t actually work. So you get into one of those, you get flung free, and… then what? Now you’re just zipping around at a very high speed in low earth orbit. What next? Were there computers good enough in fictional 1992 to figure out your location, steer towards a specific landing zone, and do a reentry?
Certainly it’s not as easy as just “get in an escape pod, leave, now you’re in good shape”.
It would have manuvering/deorbiting fuel like the Soyuz modules used on the ISS. But the critical part is that they could release unpowered during a falure of the station. You wouldn’t have to worry about going “uphill” in an elevator. (Speaking of elevators, they weren’t built with any saftey margin at all? One passenger at heaver gravity was enough to break it? And as for climbing the ladder, with every rung that you went up gravity would be rapidly falling, it isn’t the huge obstacle it was presented to be for everyone without a broken leg.)
I thought episode 2 was a big step up, primarily because there was no central implausibly stupid action scene. Nothing particularly shocking happened, lots of fairly predictable developments, but done well. And a 3-way space race is certainly something new.
Yeah, adding in a private component is good for drama. Calling it right now that the Dev Ayessa character is going to be revealed as evil in some way; the guy is talking way too much like a hippie to not be. Reminds me of an old line from I Love the 80s when discussing the original V miniseries: “When an alien race comes to Earth stating that they want to share the fruits of their labor…run.” Likewise, be wary of tech bros who preach about unity.
One thing that I found almost laugh out loud ridiculous was the Bragg guy admitting that “our party has been represented by guys who look like me for too long.” Fictional universe or not, a guy with his supposed conservative pedigree is NEVER going to think that, let alone admit it out loud. That was veering into Aaron Sorkin territory.
The rivalry between old and young also looks intriguing; Ed and Molly, more than anything, don’t seem to want to accept that they are getting towards the end of the line (at least in terms of career).
I agree.
I mean, you’re not wrong. At the same time, she’s a straight (he thinks) white woman national-hero-former-astronaut. Not a black person or (gasp) GAY person or anything. And of course since she’s already won the GOP nomination at that point, he is strongly incentivized to tell her what she wants to hear.
Not to mention that he might just be speaking purely from the pragmatic perspective of “this is what we need to do in order to win young voters”. Hasn’t the GOP lost a bunch of elections in a row in this timeline, plus she’s currently trailing in the polls by a lot? It didn’t strike me as ludicrous, certainly.
Certainly there are a lot of interpretations of it other than he-sincerely-values-diversity.
Watched this week’s episode. I think the producer and writers are outright trying to get me to hate Ed Baldwin; geez, what a meathead he was. My best friend’s son has a relapse on alcohol when he previously had a near fatal car accident in college? I know, let’s bring him on a mission to Mars where everyone needs to be at the absolute peak focus and physical condition!
Ed doesn’t deserve Dani Poole as his friend; that woman has the patience and wisdom of King Solomon.
Wrenn Schmidt had a great episode this week, depicting Margo’s inner turmoil. Interested to see with the couple of years time skip what she does regarding the KGB.
It’s definitely in-character for Ed to prioritize guts, raw skill and family connections over psychological well-being and stability. But definitely a flaw of his.
My read of watching the three launches was that Helios and Nasa both have nuclear drives, but Russia just has a big-ass “normal” rocket. But of course that might just have been the earth-to-orbit launch. Certainly if they went through with their threat it’s a bit hard to see how Margo would still be NASA administrator.
The NASA launch has a SF Magic drive that turns a space shuttle into a VTOL that doesn’t need to carry reaction mass for the voyage.
When they showed the Pathfinder launching from the Moon on its way to Mars, I was wondering how it could make the trip, both in terms of fuel and also food and other supplies. (Googling, various websites say that a trip to Mars might take seven to twenty months.)
Plus, you know they are going to show it relaunching from Mars in the same way. (If it survives—i’m predicting at least one ship to fail at Mars with crews having to double-up for the voyage home. The repurposed hotel has the most room, so I figure it will be used.)
Well, they specified that another ship is being sling-shotted around Venus with supplies…
Right. That was the Sea Dragon being sent to Mars ahead of the astronauts, containing the habitation modules and other stuff they’ll need once they get there. But in the meantime, they’ve got months to go in that little Pathfinder ship and I’m skeptical that it’s got enough room for the six or so people, the food and other supplies they’ll be consuming en route.