Project Hail Mary - Official Trailer
Amazon MGM Studios
Went to the theater yesterday afternoon to see this movie with my daughter. I read the book a few years ago, I recall it as entertaining but not that engrossing. The film, though, was pretty great. It bounces around from comedy to super serious to fantasy physics to mostly realistic spaceflight, not to mention the terrifying action sequences. Ok, maybe not terrifying, but certainly tension inducing.
The premise is totally contrived, but it makes for a good story. Our boy is shanghaied, drugged, stuffed in a rocket and sent to Tau Ceti. He wakes up after being in a coma for months (years?) and finds he's the only one left alive. The other two crew members (volunteers) died in their sleep. And what does he find at Tau Ceti? An alien spaceship with a single alien crewmember! What an outstanding coincidence! The alien is kind of cool, looks like a giant spider made of rocks. He is very talented at making things out of glass-like and metal-like materials. Xenon is apparently his favorite element for fabrication. Chemistry is wonderful. No, it's not, it's black magic.Whatever, it's a movie, and it's pretty great.
It's supposed to be a one way mission, there are no plans for any of the crew to return to earth, but we're in a movie, there must be a way back, and thanks to some help from Rocky (the alien), our boy figures it out. But then sometime after he takes off for Earth he realizes that Rocky is going to be in trouble so he alters course and goes to rescue Rocky. Me being me, I wondered how he could possibly have done that, being that Eridani, Rocky's home planet lies about nintey degrees from the direction of Earth. It would be pretty tough with the way rockets and space work. So I go rooting around on the net. I didn't find an answer, but I found a couple of cool things.
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| Hail Mary Stellar Map - David A. Wheeler |
I Recreated Project Hail Mary in KSP! | Mission to Adrian & Kau Ceti
Bogue
