It doesn't -- they're heat dissipators/radiators. Which doesn't make total sense b/c atrophage is a perfect heat absorber and, in the book, they're used for temperature regulation as well as radiation shielding. But I appreciate that the film ship has them anyway, since most sci-fi designs forget about heat entirely.
In the book they go into more detail about it. Basically they have decades upon decades of historical data and can observe a pattern of stars dimming over time, and even figure out which star infected Sol. Astrophage also can only travel about 90% the speed of light, so by the time it was able to make it to Sol there was plenty of time for visible dimming to reach us.
There's a bit of a book contrivance about Tau Ceti's brightness that the movie manages to dodge by virtue of giving less information: astrophage stops breeding at about 10% - 15% coverage of the star; still enough to kill life on a planet but not enough to totally block out all light. Since Tau Ceti is the likely origin of astrophage the mission was damn lucky that the reason they didn't see any dimming was because there was actually a predator there and not because it reached max dimming a million years ago and our observed "normal" brightness is really a star covered in astrophage.
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I only just heard about it, when it got mentioned on KUSC.
But as to Gosling, the only thing I've ever seen him in was First Man, and he seemed quite capable of taking the role of Neil Armstrong seriously enough.
But as to Gosling, the only thing I've ever seen him in was First Man, and he seemed quite capable of taking the role of Neil Armstrong seriously enough.
I'm of two minds about it. I of course understand that in advertising movies, they need to put something in the trailers to draw people in. But I feel Rocky is such a core element to the story, that revealing it is kind of like revealing a major plot point that defines a story. On the other hand, I've seen people really drawn in by the mystery of what that thing is, which is helping sell the movie.
I think they have them for backup purposes. The ship is relativistic, not FTL; it's a long journey and they've likely taken into account that things could go wrong, and being such a risky journey ( remember two of the crewmembers have already died they rather not risk anything failing. Plus for the purposes of the movie, it does look pretty cool.
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that's one of the things I always liked about the original 1701, the warp nacelles and struts were festooned with all kinds of radiator-looking panels and what not
But if they go wrong enough to need solar they're dead.
I watched the movie yesterday. It was good, but I didn’t understand anything. You have to watch it with full attention, and there are a lot of scientific terms. After watching it, I read the plot on Wikipedia. I even asked ChatGPT to simplify the scientific terms, but I still didn’t understand anything. It’s not like The Martian—that movie is much easier to understand.
Big fan of the Martian and Andy Weir.
I saw Hail Mary Saturday because I didn't know the story and I didn't want to be spoiled by reviews and complaints.
I enjoyed it. Fun ride, a bit long.
The story is un-even but decent.
Rocky is fun but too silly at times, but that is why he is there.
I did enjoy the film but as "hard science" goes it was a little light.
I give it a 7.5 out of 10.
I saw Hail Mary Saturday because I didn't know the story and I didn't want to be spoiled by reviews and complaints.
I enjoyed it. Fun ride, a bit long.
The story is un-even but decent.
Rocky is fun but too silly at times, but that is why he is there.
I did enjoy the film but as "hard science" goes it was a little light.
I give it a 7.5 out of 10.
They definitely downplayed the "best engineer in the universe" parts.
Here is the way I understand the events of the film:
Sun's dimming. There's a line extending from the Sun to Venus. A sample is brought back to Earth and brilliant astrobiologist turned Middle Years teacher, Ryland Grace, is contracted as one of many scientists to determine what the sample is. He confirms it is a living astrophage, a space fungus, that is feeding on the sun and then returning to Venus to breed and grow stronger. His team go to Tau Ceti because researchers have learned that that is the only star in the region that appears to be unaffected by the astrophage. Grace and Rocky investigate the planet the astrophage is reproducing on and discover that that planet has more life than our Venus and that life is feeding on the astrophage keeping its reproduction in check so the system has developed a symbiotic relationship with it. They gather samples of the life on that planet and send it back to Earth in the hopes that Earth scientists can breed it and introduce it to successfully live on Venus where it will act as a control agent for the astrophage.
Ryland does praise Rocky in his logs and Rocky is shown to be a brilliant designer and builder. The movie is clear that the mission would not have been successful without him.
EDIT: Here is an article I enjoyed with Weir discussing the science of the story:
Sci-fi author Andy Weir explains the astrobiology behind 'Project Hail Mary' (interview)
The new film probes the possibility of alien life – here's how the science of Project Hail Mary stacks up.
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Well, they are out to fix the sun afterall...
Better off being prepared than being dead, and in a space mission, especially a long-term one, it's good to be prepared for different scenarios and have redundancies.
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There's a lot more speculative science in Hail Mary than there was in The Martian, and, yeah, they skipped over much of it.
The biggest omission, imo, was they left it unclear exactly how astrophage was killing the sun -- basically, astrophage are pure energy absorbers (hence why they're jet black and resist x-rays etc). They're not actually 'eating' the sun like the film implied, they've basically formed a Dyson swarm and are blocking light reaching Earth. They're also perfect energy converters; they can convert mass to energy directly and vice-versa. They absorb sunloight, store it as mass, and then turn that mass back into IR light so they can fly around, like tiny matter/antimatter reactors. That's why they make perfect starship fuel: they're nearly 100% efficient energy storage.
It's been bugging me why they wouldn't bring these huge solar (tauar?) panels "just in case" or "just for backup". @Gepard's post reminded me: because they're HEAVY.
Given how the Hail Mary works, if they don't have astrophage power they're dead. They can't go anywhere. They can't complete the mission. If they have astrophage they do not need solar. So solar power would just let them die slower. (The HM does have battery backup and it is needed and used in the book.)
You add these big horking solar panels that are far from mission critical you are significantly increasing how much fuel you have to carry. Or how much time it will take to get there. Something that is skipped in the movie is that they essentially pave the Sahara Desert to make enough fuel to get to Tau Ceti. This is one of those "we have just enough to do what we need" situations. Adding frivolous solar panels "just in case" makes it worse. Eyeballing how big they are, it makes it a lot worse.
They couldn't make the crew living space large enough to where the crew wouldn't kill each other from psychological stress. (So it says in the book. No idea if that's science or not.) That's why they're in comas (that are apparently 33% effective). But at any rate, weight was at a massive (er, sorry) premium for a trip taking over a decade.
You do make a great point. I admit, it's been a while since I've read the book, and I forget if it was ever mentioned how power is stored.
I guess in the end, panels were added because it looked 'cool' on screen rather than for any functional sense. Still more realistic than most sci-fi, and I think that's what they were trying to evoke rather than something sleek.
Well, again, those are not solar panels on the film design, they're heat dissipators. They appear to be based on the ones on the ISS:
en.wikipedia.org
Spacecraft thermal control - Wikipedia
The book really gets good once he's introduced. I was disappointed that it was in the trailer since my wife saw it at the movie theatre, and she hadn't read the book.
I think the book is really good before that. But it's about what you'd expect from the author of The Martian. Then Rocky is introduced and it "levels up".
But the way to get butts in seats is Rocky. And it worked. Hail Mary, full of Grace.
Well, again, those are not solar panels on the film design, they're heat dissipators. They appear to be based on the ones on the ISS:
Spacecraft thermal control - Wikipedia
That's even worse.
OK you too can have your very own Hail Mary
I'm going to see this in the next week or two and am excited
Rocky is an alien is it ever explained in the book if Earth knows about his kind or not?
I'm going to see this in the next week or two and am excited
No, Earth does not know about that in the novel.
Oh that's pretty cool then, he has a story to tell when he gets home.