Project Hail Mary Discussion

[Richards]

Well, for one thing, remember they packed food

Spoiler

for three people, and only one of them woke up after the stint in suspended animation....

Johnathan

 

[Ryujin]

Like accelerating to near-light speed without time -dilation effects worth mentioning? Or  decelerating from the interstellar speed?

What doesn't take a science degree is the question SPOILER: what does Grace eat after the allotted time of his one-way trip is up? (Soilent green?)

Time dilation was mentioned. The distance from Sol to Tau Ceti is 11.9 light years, but Grace's return trip was estimated by the computer to be something like 5.4 years. Since they weren't using some sort of FTL drive, the time would have had to include time dilation.

 

[Umbran]

Read the book a while back. Been told the movie is good, but haven't seen it yet.

Stopped in to mention that Weir apparently said some dumb stuff, and is catching flak for it. Good times.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

For those who liked the movie and want to hear more about the puppeteering, Imaginary Worlds just did a podcast interview with the main puppeteer. Made me want to go see the movie (haven't yet but maybe this week!)

Episode 299: Puppeteering Project Hail Mary — Imaginary Worlds

When I interviewed Andy Weir in 2021 about his novel Project Hail Mary, he told me that the movie adaptation was already being planned starring Ryan Gosling. The big question was how would they bring the alien character of Rocky to life. Would they use CGI or practical effects? Now that the film i

www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org

 

[Clint_L]

Read the book a while back. Been told the movie is good, but haven't seen it yet.

Stopped in to mention that Weir apparently said some dumb stuff, and is catching flak for it. Good times.

Eh he just mildly dissed new Star Trek. I agree with him. Wasn’t super clever from a PR perspective, tho.

 

[GMMichael]

Well, for one thing, remember they packed food

Spoiler

for three people, and only one of them woke up after the stint in suspended animation....

Johnathan

Good point. The vodka didn't last long, though.

 

[GMMichael]

Time dilation was mentioned. The distance from Sol to Tau Ceti is 11.9 light years, but Grace's return trip was estimated by the computer to be something like 5.4 years. Since they weren't using some sort of FTL drive, the time would have had to include time dilation.

Hmm. I'd like to see the maths on how long his trip would take from Earth's perspective, assuming his ship didn't reach full light speed. Because he told the kiddies that the sun would be eaten in 30 years... and that's cutting it pretty close.

 

[jian]

Read the book a while back. Been told the movie is good, but haven't seen it yet.

Stopped in to mention that Weir apparently said some dumb stuff, and is catching flak for it. Good times.

Yeah, Weir said that he didn’t like social or political commentary in Star Trek or any other writing. Which is fair enough but ST is an odd one to pick for that.

And of course his own work is full of political and social commentary that he doesn’t seem to have noticed, such as the value of large well-funded government space agencies, evidence-based scientific research and policy, well-implemented and rigorously tested incremental technological development, or international cooperation and diplomacy to solve a huge global crisis, all of which he presumably thinks are good things. It wouldn’t be the first time that an unreflective author hasn’t examined their own views or how they might be evident in their writing.

 

[Clint_L]

Time dilation was mentioned. The distance from Sol to Tau Ceti is 11.9 light years, but Grace's return trip was estimated by the computer to be something like 5.4 years. Since they weren't using some sort of FTL drive, the time would have had to include time dilation.

Also, in the final scenes we see that folks back on earth have aged much more than Grace has, and the earth is clearly well into the cooling cycle.

 

[Clint_L]

Yeah, Weir said that he didn’t like social or political commentary in Star Trek or any other writing. Which is fair enough but ST is an odd one to pick for that.

I didn't catch that. All I saw was him repeating the recent joke that most of modern sci-fi owes a lot to classic Star Trek. Except for modern Star Trek. But than he went on to say that he liked Stangre New Worlds and a few of the other programs, but called the rest of it "sh*t". That's what he just issued an apology for, saying that he was trying to be funny because Paramount had rejected his own pitch, but failed miserably.