So how stupid is it?
How come they don't keep a backup CDRA (Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly)? That's stupid beyond belief, right?
Well, guess what: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maintenance_of_the_International_Space_Station
That's only one bit of the stupidity. It is much worse when it comes to the artificial gravity, you could spin an object in space to simulate gravity, but you you wouldn't do it if you had deployed solar panels because you would need to keep the panels facing the sun not spinning... Then there is the little problem of spinning around the center of the mass of what your spinning, you need to have what you are spinning be perfectly balanced or the object will not spin it will wobble which is not what you would ever want a spaceship to do.... But hey... Let's assume these dunderheads spaceship is spinning and perfectly balanced. You can't now move all 2 people from one side of the spinning ship to the other to recover oxygen because their moving from one side to the other upsets the balance... Now have a door or other piece from one side flung off into space and again you've messed up the balance... I realize they want to pretend they had artificial gravity because they needed it to be there to allow the stowaway to fall on top of one of the characters and injury them, and probably because it made making the movie much easier if you didn't have to have everyone floating throughout the movie... But the artificial gravity and everything about it seemed bullshit.
Now throw in the other plot device, the solar radiation from a solar flare... Well it wouldn't matter if you were inside the ship or outside you were going to get hit by the radiation once you leave the protection of the Earth's magnetic field your fucked by any radiation that the sun throws at you... But apparently they had a special ship that protected them magically unless they were outside the ship.
It really seems like it was a story dreamed up by elementary school kids that never bothered to even ponder how realistic their plot devices were.
Crap.
The central body is exactly where you want to put your solar panels, because it barely rotates and it is easy to adjust them to face the sun. Astronauts could go where they want to because their mass is so negligible compared to the weights that it is nothing. Besides, changing the center of rotation will only change the gravity experienced at both ends.
Solar flare protection is a thing. It is easily blocked by mass. How do you think the future Gateway, part of the Artemis program, is going to be protected against flares? By magic, no doubt.
I haven't watched the movie, nor I plan to, because even the trailer is boring as hell, but kudos to them for trying to portray interesting spaceflight concepts. And it is fiction after all. It just has to be believable enough, but mostly it has to be interesting, which this movie is not from what I see.
Clearly you didnt watch the movie or you would have seen that the panels were not facing the sun all the time because of the way they were rotating.
You also have no clue about solar radiation. Yes you can block it with concrete and lead but you don't see the launching nuclear blast shelters. The whole of the movie was a collection of crap. Don't defend something you haven't seen it just highlights your ignorance.
No true obviously as people are now preparing for extended stay in Moon's orbit and eventually on its surface. The solar radiation drops significantly even by passing just through the thin aluminum shell of the spacecraft. In solar events the astronauts are supposed to put as much mass as possible between them and the space, and some protection vests are being considered for the current Lunar program. This is how it works since the Apollo missions, but they got lucky back then not to experience any solar events. You don't need concrete, lead or anything like that. Of course, working in space is a job being done in an environment of high radiation and you can't cancel it completely yet. Even on the space station sometimes is like 30 times higher than what we have on Earth and people spend months there.
The bitch is not the solar radiation but the cosmic rays. They are harder to block and more dangerous. The irony is that when the sun is more active, and hence more solar radiation, the cosmic rays are weaker and vice versa.
Assuming that they are on a trip to Mars, we could suppose that they have some good shielding against radiation. But yeah, I haven't watched the movie and I'm not planning to. I'm just talking about general real world principles here.
About the movie, they were consulted by Scott Manley. Here he explains the spacecraft:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCwXJMVVdck
When they have the solar flares which will happen, and certainly will happen over a 2 year period when the ship was going from Earth to Mars and back, they would have to deal with x-rays and gamma rays. Those require lots of mass to block which wasn't on the ship. The reality is we aren't going to be going to Mars until someone finds a way to create an eletromagnetic shield around the ship that works like the Earth's magnetic shield to protect the people in the ship... and even then you would be fucked once you got to Mars because it has no magnetic shield to protect the planet. We are at the moment prisoners of the planet Earth and it isn't going to change until there are some big scientific advances.
shareHow did they make it to the moon then?
shareA much shorter trip (8 days vs 2 years) and luck (no solar flares).
shareLuck? So, what would have happened if l a solar flare happened?
How's SpaceX going to keep astronauts save?
https://theconversation.com/space-radiation-the-apollo-crews-were-extremely-lucky-120339
https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/livinginspace/27jan_solarflares.html
Not sure about Space X. Better hulls?
https://theconversation.com/mars-mission-how-increasing-levels-of-space-radiation-may-halt-human-visitors-94052
For the Moon program they probably will use denser spacecrafts, but I couldn't find any info on that, except that ISS's hull is double the density per area than Apollo's hull and we could assume similar for the moon missions. There will be also protection vests that the astronauts will wear during such events. Other thing they will do is to put much of the cargo around them to shield. One of the Apollo missions was very close to a potentially sickening solar flare.
The most serious problem comes from the highly penetrating galactic radiation. Prolonged exposure will certainly get you in trouble. Apollo astronauts suffered from 50% higher incidence of cardiovascular disease, possibly caused by the galactic rays, and they spent few days there. A trip to Mars without serious radiation protection is crazy. We don't even know how bad it would be. This is why the Moon is with higher priority - to run all kinds of experiments and develop all kinds of technologies for surviving deep space and alien worlds.
What Musk says is certainly not happening in the timeframes he gives. So much work remains... it is mind boggling. At that point a trip to Mars in the next 10 years sounds more like a joke than a plan.
The real saving grace for ISS is that it is in a low enough orbit that it gets some shielding from the Earth's magnetic field.
shareYou do realize the trip to the moon and back was less than 10 days right? They were simply lucky that there were no solar flares during the time they were beyond the Earth's magnetic field. And they were really only beyond the protection of that field for about 6 to 7 days. If they had been outside the protection during a solar event they would not have returned home celebrating their achievement they would have returned home looking like survivors of a nuclear blast with radiation poisoning. The crew in the movie would have all died before they reached Mars because of the solar flare. You don't avoid gamma radiation by hiding in a metal shed which is what you basically had with the spaceship. We didn't develop tactical nukes knowing tank crews would be shielded and survive we developed them because they would radiate the crews inside the very thick metal tanks at that time. To make tanks radiation proof they needed to modify them to use thick layers of depleted uranium and other heavy dense materials. The ship in the movie wasn't a fortified tank in space it was more like an extension of the current international space station which would be worthless at protecting you from solar events.
shareI'm no expert, just asking. What are the odds of a solar flare occurring during a trip to the moon? It must be pretty low since they went several times during the Apollo missions..?
shareSolar flares go in cycles, oddly enough the first trip to the moon happened during a peak of solar activity. There is even a website that keeps track of the 50 largest ones each year. So they are fairly common. That being said, remember that the sun is a large ball in space and any flare that happens on the back side of the sun doesn't send any radiation to things facing the other side. The really were just rolling the dice, until recently that had no real way of predicting when they would even happen although today I believe they can predict the larger one 24 to 48 hours in advance. Of course when your trip to the moon takes 3 days just to get there even a 48 hour warning means nothing as if you launched during a time when none were expected one could form after you had launched and you would be fucked with no way to turn back.
shareSolar flares are mostly particles and less X and gamma rays, which in general are also less harmful. Sadly I couldn't find a nice graphic I saw recently that shows how fast the radiation is attenuated with even small increases in hull thickness. Apollo got lucky, the ISS has double the density per area than what Apollo had and I assume the same for the coming Lunar missions.
However, the hull won't help against galactic radiation and possibly make it worse by causing secondary radiation while the particles are blasting the hull. That means the best time for a trip to Mars is during Solar maximums, because then you have less galactic radiation and it is easy to shield against solar flares... in theory. In practice we don't know much about these things yet and the Lunar program will help us with that.
Once on Mars the radiation levels are much more acceptable, because you have the surface under your feet and the atmosphere above, which helps a bit as thin as it is. Of course during solar or galactic events, you need to seek shelter.
The Apollo crews to the moon were at risk of a solar flair with NASA knowing that if there was one it would have likely given them a lethal dose of radiation, and that wasn't looking at particles, that was based solely on the x-ray and gamma rays that are released from solar flares.
Not sure why you even bring up ISS since ISS is orbiting low enough that it gets some benefit from the Earth's magnetic field and associated shield.
As for Mars protecting them, hardly. They would only gain significant protection when they were on the dark side of the planet. On the light side the atmosphere would be near pointless as our atmosphere on Earth isn't doing much for us it is the magnetic shield that protects us.
I gave ISS as an example how they significantly improved radiation protection by thickening the hull. Not that this will help them much for prolonged trips.
As for Mars, the atmosphere indeed helps, because it is a layer of mass after all. I'm too lazy now to look up the numbers, but on Mars' surface the radiation is roughly comparable to ISS, meaning much less than the radiation levels on Moon's surface. However, it dangerously spikes during solar events, not to mention again the absurdity of traveling to there in a tin can without special considerations about radiation shielding.
Actually the radiation on Mars is 2.5 times that you would expect on ISS. The other problem is the solar flares, the Mars Odyssey study found that they had 2 events that resulted in 2,000 millarads. The human body can withstand 200 without permanent damage. Either one of those 2 events would have fucked the people on the planet. If you look at most realistic plans for any colony on Mars you'll find they involve living underground or in structures created from materials sourced on Mars to make radiation resistant bunkers.
shareJust FYI, Manley released new video commenting on the science in the movie and where it fails. He also touches upon radiation and shielding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic0mz3_U4c
He pretty much mentions it in passing, with the real tell that your watching shit being that he freely admits somethings made no sense but he accepted them because they looked cool. Jesus fucking Christ... just because something looks cool he gives it a pass? And the thing he is giving a pass is the bullshit scene where Kendrick sees the radiation wafting across her like smoke drifting past someone... Sorry but he lost any credibility with that crap. Was it an interesting shot? Sure, but it was so ridiculous that you couldn't excuse its complete disregard for reality. Even if you accepted the premise that you could somehow magically see radiation, radiation doesn't drift around things like smoke from a fog machine it just fucking goes straight through shit, hands, gloves, metal, whatever... it travels like a laser beam only it doesn't stop for thin shit it just keeps on truckin'
shareIt's a movie, not a documentary ...
shareExactly. Thankfully every movie, tv show, stage play, novel, ballet, opera, kabuki drama, comic book, etc., etc. is not rigidly held to scientific exactitude. There would be a lot of dull crap out there, with very little entertainment value. That's what documentaries and textbooks are for.
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The central body is exactly where you want to put your solar panels, because it barely rotates and it is easy to adjust them to face the sun. Astronauts could go where they want to because their mass is so negligible compared to the weights that it is nothing. Besides, changing the center of rotation will only change the gravity experienced at both ends.
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But the solar panels in this case were on the ends of the teether holding the two craft together. The spacecraft was held together like a cannon chain shot with the center of mass/rotation being some where in the middle of the teether cable so the panels where always rotating changing direction in relation to the sun.
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Solar flare protection is a thing. It is easily blocked by mass. How do you think the future Gateway, part of the Artemis program, is going to be protected against flares? By magic, no doubt.
Thats only true of the Alpha radiation from the solar flares. There are still X-ray and gamma rays to worry about but the ship should have shielding to withstand solar flares.
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Sure, we are not talking about stopping it, but attenuating it to acceptable levels, which means bringing back healthy humans from a round trip to Mars or surviving on the Moon, which is the current plan. At that point in time sending humans in a tin can to Mars is a slow-motion suicide due lack of reliable radiation shielding. The Apollo astronauts spent just few days in deep space and it was found that they had like 50% more chance to suffer from a cardiovascular disease. Imagine 6 months to Mars and 6 more back...
The point here is that it totally make sense for the astronauts in Stowaway to seek shelter in the spacecraft to reduce their exposure to solar radiation, even more so if they had reliable shielding for a Mars trip, which is safe to assume even if they don't mention it in the movie (which is kinda lame if you are trying to portray things realistically).
The problem is that seeking shelter in the ship from radiation would be like cowering inside a grass hut when a tornado was about to hit. They needed more than the metal of a ship to shield them.
shareThey did mention that inside that one pod that it was electromagnetically shielded from radiation ... in this case the charged particles emanating from the sun.
The problem is, when they knew they had to leave, why did they try to take the canisters with them and not just leave them in place come back later? There was no real need for that.
Not to mention why couldn't they stop the spin of the ship, make whatever repairs of operation they needed to and restart it again. Then it was stupid to have astronauts not tethered to the ship at all times. This movie was so dumb!
> but kudos to them for trying to portray interesting spaceflight concepts
Yes, but in everything that mattered with respect to the plot all those concepts were pointless.
They protected the pod they said by generating a strong magnetic field around it, and shielding too.
The radius was so great that a center of mass change would not have affected anything.
Good point about the solar panels ... no real reason to attack the ship design for that, except for how it was implemented in the model.
The main reason they even did the rotating ship is because it was too expensive and slow to have the characters moving around in zero G to film the movie.
The biggest problem for me is that when they were moving these oxygen canisters around there was no reason to not put them down, leave them, and get back the shelter of the ship, and then was the solar storm was over to go back and get them.
The radiation pod generated a strong magnetic field to protect them.
The ship would not have to be perfectly balanced. Don't know where you are getting that. The center of mass was the integral of all the centers of masses, and they were all very far from the center, and must more massive than anything that would be moving or changing. What we saw was bad design in that there was no real way to safely access the entirety of the ship while spinning.
They should have had some way to spin down the ship if necessary, and they would need to have when they got to Mars anyway. This movie really made very little sense.
There was no reason when they were moving out of the radiation that they had to take the canisters with them. not to mention to have themselves and their canisters tethered to the ship at all times - that is just the simplest basic thing to remember.