![]() Whether we like it or not, apparently China is slowly catching up - being the 3rd nation to have a man in space already, and are planning to send a rover to the moon in the near future (see BBC news, etc), so the reference to China was relatively realistic. ![]() Let's not forget we all 'hated' or 'feared' the soviets (USSR) one way or another back in its day. thick tablet computers, etc) which adds slightly to a cheesy effect for the technologically knowledgeable people, but it is very likely we will still use very similar technologies then. Given production budget limits, understandable uses of pre-existing technologies have had to be used (i.e. Nuclear thermal is theoretically simple - use heat of a hot nuclear object to turn a liquid into superheated gas which comes out of the rocket - rather than more fun but currently-unobtainable technology such as fusion or antimatter rockets. Even the use of nuclear thermal propulsion system was a somewhat realistic idea - lots of designs were tested in the 1960's (wikipedia: "Nuclear thermal rocket") and almost became mission-ready until concerns about radioactivity came to fore. Without going into the plot, there are a number of realistic portrayals exhibited in this show, included included psychology elements of a manned mars trip, scandal (remember Nowak), skipped quality-control checks (just see all the product recalls going on these days), politics, a 'reasonable' going-against-mission-control school of thought (just remember Alan Shepard played a little unauthorized golf on the moon in 1971), spacecraft software bugs and radioed upgrades (very common in current spacecraft), the amount of time it took to travel to Mars is similar to current mars missions, the use of centrifugal force for artificial gravity, a number of very reasonable disasters (some of which are similar to what has happened before - fire on MIR space station, collision of Spektr of MIR, space shuttle disaster, - all real space disasters etc), Apollo 13 style improvisation (did you know they actually used duct tape and plastic bags to fix the life support system?), boredom, health issues, bathroom, mold, laboratory animals, experiments, and lots more. This series is much more realistic than "Mission to Mars" and "The Red Planet", if you are looking for realism (including boredom) instead of popcorn action (nonstop action). In short, this series is designed as a more realistic (if slightly hollywoodified) portrayal of a manned mars mission. The show is more of interest for the documentary/intellectual crowd, or the docudrama crowd, than for the popcorn movie crowd. As a science fiction enthusiast and a space technology reader, I can recognize that some people expected a nonstop action-filled movie and got disappointed by it. A show for the "Deep Impact" crowd rather than the "Armageddon" crowd. Overall, an amazingly realistic "space drama" 4-hour TV show for the right expectations - a show that makes you think. ![]()
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