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Science fiction and the death of the sun

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Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#91

Post by rk06 »

Reason077 wrote: post #18

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's 2007 film Sunshine is another great example of this genre. Rather than abandoning a frozen earth due to the dying sun, they send a mission to deliver a bomb into it to "restart" it. A real all-star cast featuring not only a young Cillian Murphy, but a young Michelle Yeoh, Chris Evans, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Cliff Curtis, and Rose Byrne! Highly recommended, despite never satisfa…

> despite never satisfactorily explaining why they require a manned spacecraft to do the job rather than sending a robotic drone ship. Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission.

As a software engineer, this statement baffles my mind. like how could anyone in right mind trust software to make right choices in prod on first try?

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#92

Post by StefanBatory »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #13

Liu Cixin has a novella about moving the earth to avoid a supernova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth_(novella)

His books feel quite uncomfortable to me.

They read like endorsement of CCP authoritarian govt, with how often the themes are "Leaders are flawless, don't dare to even criticise them" (last wallfacer in Three Body Problem)

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#93

Post by taneq »

entrox wrote: post #58
0x38B wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These two articles in American Cinematographer (1 and 2) give some interesting background on the movie; concerning the ship they write: > When it first appears onscreen, the Event Horizon craft itself resembles a giant crucifix hovering over the surface of Neptune. "The spaceship was built on a cruciform, like all cathedrals are," Anderson explains. "We began the design process by literally scanning [photos of] the N…

It‘s fun to imagine that Event Horizon is actually in the same universe as Warhammer 40k. Not only does the plot fit perfectly with the ship going through the warp, the Gothic design matches the aesthetic as well. Even if not intended, it just works so well.

I'm pretty sure I read that it was originally planned to be but they couldn't get GW to sign off on it.

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#94

Post by KineticLensman »

jxdxbx wrote: post #54
oceanplexian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of the art 21st century technology and software crash on the moon repeatedly, and yet, in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Given the choice between robots and humans, I’ll take the humans.

I didn’t want to pipe up right when it happened with my non-expertise but seriously, that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design. Of course it tipped over. Come on

> that Odysseus lander seemed liked a pretty dumb design

It was built thin and tall to fit within the Falcon 9 fairing. It didn't have extending legs because these would have become possible points of failure. The crash happened because the altimeter wasn't working, which IIRC was due to a pre-launch assembly error. As a result Odysseus landed outside the safe operating parameters of the landing legs.

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#95

Post by weinzierl »

Since it fits the topic and my efforts to find this story have been unsuccessful for years, I'll give it a try:

I am looking for a short story about an astronaut conducting radiation measurements on the dark side of the moon (or maybe mars). The astronaut ponders the strange measurement results when it dawns at him that the sun must have gone supernova and earth probably scorched. He returns to earth as the last living human, but discovers that other lifeforms (I believe to remember it was about a butterfly) seem to have survived and despite the end of humanity, life was going to continue.

I read this story about 30 years ago in an anthology of short stories which my future wife brought from our local library. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of the other stories and authors, but I believe they were all well known names and not obscure pulp fiction authors.

Today it strikes me, how naïve the thought was, that libraries and books were for eternity and that everything I'd read would be effortlessly available for me in the library to read again when ever I wanted.

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#96

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

perihelions wrote: post #77
oceanplexian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of the art 21st century technology and software crash on the moon repeatedly, and yet, in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Given the choice between robots and humans, I’ll take the humans.

You're reading history in reverse. The Soviets landed a robotic probe on the moon years before the USA succeeded with human pilots, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 ("Luna 9") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M... ( "List of missions to the Moon—Mission milestone by country" ) You absolutely don't need sophisticated technology or giant budgets to accomplish this.

Luna 9 used an airbag system, not a soft landing system.

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#97

Post by fsiefken »

weinzierl wrote: post #95

Since it fits the topic and my efforts to find this story have been unsuccessful for years, I'll give it a try: I am looking for a short story about an astronaut conducting radiation measurements on the dark side of the moon (or maybe mars). The astronaut ponders the strange measurement results when it dawns at him that the sun must have gone supernova and earth probably scorched. He returns to earth as the last livi…

So is the old catalogue of the library perhaps available? Perhaps there is a dos computer or disk still available or someone who knows? Perhaps also ask in https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#98

Post by alistairSH »

strogonoff wrote: post #52
oceanplexian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of the art 21st century technology and software crash on the moon repeatedly, and yet, in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Given the choice between robots and humans, I’ll take the humans.

Human ingenuity aside, I wonder if sending humans on missions can offer higher success rates due to higher stakes for all involved (the cost of human life). When we send humans to the Moon, the pressure to get things right is higher and consequences of failure are very dire. Sadly, of course, not a guarantee of success.

Which then leads me to wonder...

The risk vs reward calculation for human-involved missions is necessarily higher than robotic missions.

Is that additional cost an order of magnitude higher? IE, we can afford one and only one human mission, but three robotic missions? Does the math work out in favor of the single high-success mission, or the three slightly lower success missions? Obviously depends on the expected success rate and cost of each.

But, probably why we haven't done a lot with human missions since the 60s.

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#99

Post by firebaze »

StefanBatory wrote: post #92
radicaldreamer wrote: post #13

Liu Cixin has a novella about moving the earth to avoid a supernova https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wandering_Earth_(novella)

His books feel quite uncomfortable to me. They read like endorsement of CCP authoritarian govt, with how often the themes are "Leaders are flawless, don't dare to even criticise them" (last wallfacer in Three Body Problem)

Can you name other examples? I didn't have that impression yet, and the wallfacer example strikes me as a bad one (in the given context, it is reasonable to give the wallfacers full authority, would probably be the same even if the author was a Texan Redneck)

Re: Science fiction and the death of the sun

#100

Post by generalizations »

perihelions wrote: post #77
oceanplexian wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems to me that adding humans to the mix greatly increased the complexity and risk of the mission. We spent the last few years watching robots with state of the art 21st century technology and software crash on the moon repeatedly, and yet, in the 1960s a few hot shot test pilots could stick a landing on their first try. Given the choice between robots and humans, I’ll take the humans.

You're reading history in reverse. The Soviets landed a robotic probe on the moon years before the USA succeeded with human pilots, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9 ("Luna 9") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon#M... ( "List of missions to the Moon—Mission milestone by country" ) You absolutely don't need sophisticated technology or giant budgets to accomplish this.

Except, Luna 9 was soft landing attempt no. 12 - the point is the humans pulled it off on landing attempt no. 1.
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