Capricorn One (Spoilers)

Escape from New York is one of my favourite films and top three Carpenter for me (admittedly I'm self aware to realise that some of that is nostalgia because it was the first Carpenter film I ever saw, maybe mid 80s on VHS?) Even looking at it objectively I find it hugely enjoyable.

Though I did think Snake would be taller...

 

I wonder if Escape from Earth will ever get made...

 

Plus John Carpenter said he's not really into lots of special effects, which that movie would certainly require. Plissken in space...probably wouldn't work.

Besides, given how L.A. ended, he couldn't get INTO space in the first place!

 

Plissken and apes? Now THAT I'd like to see.

 

Two after the gorilla gets done with one of them.

 

I've had an idea for a 'Terminator' / 'Planet of the Apes' crossover called 'Termin-ape'.

 

Yet, NASA actually drew up wacky plans that are little different than the mission shown in Capricorn One. NASA had a plan in their files for a Gemini lunar mission, complete with landing. They had a plan in their files for an Apollo flyby of Venus. Could they have worked? Sure. Were they realistic, and would the crew have survived, physically, if not mentally? Ehh...

 

They have to have somewhere to go. Our current ships (well, as far as we know), have to return frequently to refresh their air.

Clearly true -- no one could handle six to eight months in a tiny box. But if there really is an Alcubierre faster-than-light drive, a tiny ship would work.

For colonization, a fourth technology really is necessary; the Star Trek "Materializer". We could make a Moon or Mars colony work if we moved enough equipment to process oxides (or water, both bodies have water), and create air. If we can make lithium hydroxide (or in a pinch sodium hydroxide, that scavenges CO2 also), fine; otherwise we'd have to make fresh O2 (and something inert like nitrogen) and dump the stale air...

 

Anyone in the mood for a story?

Physicist soldered in the last part, plugged in the board -- grimmaced and switched on power.

Good, no smoke. He thought for a moment, leaned over to the microphone and said, "Root beer."

The machine went, "Whirrrr" -- and a foaming puddle was on the receiver stage. Forgot to say "bottle".

Then he said, "Dollar bill." Whirrrr!
"Twenty dollar bill." Whirrrr!
"HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!!!" Whirrrr!

He had stacks of money. Suddenly he got a gleam in his eye, grabbed the microphone and said, "Girl!"

The machine went, "Whirrrr!" And there standing on the receiver stage was a girl! She had pigtails and freckles, she was only eight years old. Physicist said, "Oh, Hell."

...WHIRRRRRR.....

 

In the movie, how much time had passed between the launch of the missile and the re-entry of the capsule?

 

That's a great question. From IMDB:

[COLOR=purple]...on the morning of 4 Jan, NASA readies the spacecraft Capricorn One
On 14 May ...Capricorn One ...has landed on Mars
On 19 Sept, Charles, Peter and John are on board the Learjet flying to the capsule's landing site in the ocean.[/COLOR]​

So travel time out a little over four months (130 days). Assuming they spent 5 days on Mars, travel time back four months (128 days). If they only spend three days on Mars (why so little after so many months flying in a sardine can), 130 days.

And that's why flying to Mars with rocket power is insane. The Apollo missions mostly took place during a solar minimum (the cycle is about 10 years as I remember); if a flare occurs in their direction there's nothing to do except send a brief message, "Well it's been good knowing you". Lunar missions were only about three days (each way), so the probability of getting fried by an event was much lower than a mission lasting eight months.

On September 1, 1859, a British citizen Richard Carrington finished breakfast and wandered to the other end of his house into his observatory, turned his telescope to the sun, employing it as a projector (it projected an image of the Sun onto a screen). Shortly after that he noticed a solar flare firing right at him. About thirty minutes later (some accounts relate) a second flare fired.

Had such a flare fired in space toward the Apollo missions, the astronauts would have instantly perished. There was sufficient time in 1859 between the observed flares and Auroras seen globally and telegraph offices catching fire, a ship with an Alcubierre drive could have zipped behind the Moon or Mars and survived. There would have been nothing Apollo craft could have done...

 

According to NASA, a one-way trip to Mars would take about nine months. If you wanted to make it a round-trip, all in all, it would take about 21 months as you will need to wait about three months on Mars to make sure Earth and Mars are in a suitable location to make the trip back home.

I really think they didn't give a lot of thought to the whole "voyage to Mars" part of the movie. I wonder if they even consulted someone or if they just made up every technical bit.

 

The whole movie was just a dramatic filming of the moon landing conspiracy theory circulating during the Apollo missions. They just switched the Moon for Mars; and set up the situation where the astronauts being found alive after the heat shield malfunction would blow NASA's coverup.

 

Gee Louise -- and something I've never seen addressed in scripts is the radiation danger. The highest radiation danger vocation in America is airline crew; they tell me above 25,000 feet a geiger-counter really gets active. Next time I fly I'll take along one of my cigarette-pack-sized counters and see.

...imagine continuous radiation for 21 months (there's nothing on Mars to block radiation either, bases would have to be underground where rock can shield them!) In the movie "The Martian" they lamented that after such a long trip they would never be allowed in space again.

But most of that travel time is because of orbital mechanics, minimum fuel consumption, matching velocities (all accelerations must eventually be decelerated) etcetera. That's the beauty of the Alcubierre drive -- the ship isn't actually moving, so there's no acceleration/deceleration regimes. You don't even have to be sitting down, your ship isn't moving (it's as if space around your ship moves, compressing in front and expanding behind) --- so there's no inertia!

You just aim your ship at the moon or planet of choice (unlike Apollo which had to aim in FRONT of the moon), kick on the drive then shut it off moments later, and you're parked in orbit. I wonder if it could be precise enough to get someone close to the surface? Launching from the moon wasn't hard, with 1/6 Earth gravity (and no wind resistance) it was easy to carry enough ascent-fuel. Mars has a much deeper gravity well, 38% gravity, and a little wind resistance. If you switch over to rockets to land, you would have to either carry considerable fuel (burning extra to land your ascent-fuel), or count on digging up a bunch of buried water (Mars does have deposits) and running a plant to crack it.

We're back to needing "electro-gravitic" propulsion, which as I understand isn't that difficult.

Clearly you're right. The focus was on "the conspiracy", details be hanged...

 

Well, perhaps in the context of the movie they used some kind of revolutionary propulsion that halved the trip's duration. For dramatic purposes, I can accept that.

There is still the little problem that they in theory spent 9 months in an sardine can...

 

Perhaps.

Yes -- and they carried enough food and water in their tiny module for all three.

And then there were all those trips to the outhouse...

 

I saw the movie many years ago. All I remember is there was a fake space mission in it and O. J. Simpson was in the movie. I forgot what happened to O. J's character though.

 

And yet, I though Farah did the best acting of the three leads.

 

It's... debated.

 

Keitel was pretty much an unknown at that time so if you saw the Saturn 3 when it first came out it wasn't such a big deal, but seeing in now with that voice coming from that mouth is just plain weird.