Beautiful.
You might be interested to learn that Erik Wernquist is also the person who created Crazy Frog some ten years ago.
Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
51–60 of 133 posts
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#52Which planet would allow for the largest/densest brain size in an organism that evolved to maximum size there?
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#53I would like to see a full length Wanderers movie. The optimistic feeling of adventure, travel and belief in science, would make it well worth spending a couple of hours watching.
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#54Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
This is fundamentally a question of the balance between our efforts focused on the long-term vs those focused on the short-term. Space exploration offers significant benefits long-term but generally provides no immediate pay-off next quarter.
I'm personally baffled by the desire to focus all our resources on the short-term. The questions of the long-term future of humankind and our place in the universe, make the immediate issues like pollution and disease look petty and irrelevant by comparison.
Also, from the practical angle, we're already spending a huge amount of money on solving our local, short-term problems here on Earth. Adding ~$2 trillion would be an increase, but not a game-changer. OTOH, humanity spends under $50 billion/year on space [1]. Adding $2 trillion would constitute 4000% increase! This might be enough to transform humanity from a precarious single-planet species into an interplanetary civilization in a few generations.
Another important point is that a lot of our problems here on Earth are entirely self-inflicted (e.g. inequality, pollution, global warming) and so they can't simply be fixed by throwing money at them: they need political transformation.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government_space_agenci...
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#55Crazy how one man can do something that normally would take hundreds of people to accomplish. Wouldn't it be nice if Erik Wernquist was in charge of the filmatization of "2312" (the novel that inspired his "Iapetus Ridge" scene). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)
I was immediately reminded of Robinson's work a few seconds in. There is so much to discover out there and the extremes of physical state and sheer size make it so hard to imagine it all. His writing offer a window into that world and this short was a great visualization of it.
Robinson is a fantastic author at conveying "a sense of place" - particularly Mars, of course. I fell in love with Mars because of Robinson, unrequited love of course - Blues for the Red Planet indeed....
Also, I also loved his book Antarctica which is effectively "White Mars" - at least there is a chance of visiting incredible places like the Airdevronsix icefall - arguably the largest waterfall on this planet (5km wide and 400m high):
http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/An/Antarctica/Antarctic...
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#56Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
I imagine this cooperation will happen, probably towards the middle of this century, as resources become ever more scarce and general ignorance of the population at large decreases.
> general ignorance of the population at large decreases
I like sci-fi, but this is the real world we're talking about here.
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#57Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
I imagine this cooperation will happen, probably towards the middle of this century, as resources become ever more scarce and general ignorance of the population at large decreases.
If our history is anything to go by, then lack of resources and competition for what remains wont lead to "co-operation" but will lead to war.
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#58What a fantastic video. My favourite part: BASE jumping from Verona Rupes - the tallest known cliff in the Solar System - somewhere from 5km to 20km vertical: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110404.html By comparison the tallest vertical drop on Earth is on the surreal Mount Thor at 1250m: http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/mount-thor-greatest-ver... [Some great details - like the Earth coastlines used in the asteroid…
[deleted]
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#59Definitely check out the imgur gallery[1] with explanations of all the scenes!
Re: Wanderers: a short film of humanity's expansion into the Solar System [video]
#60Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
You seem to not realize those are problems for us, human virus, and not the planet problems. Those so called problems are natures way of trying to balance things. If you cut hunger and make a breakthrough in healthcare you will immediately accelerate population growth, and in effect accelerate pollution and energy use.
Earth is unsustainable in the long run. No one is willing to accept euthanasia, birth limits, basically efforts to maintain population caps. People might say its a good idea others should implement, not them personally :)