Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/01/elon-musks-spacex-plans-nasa.html
NASA and SpaceX have completed thousands of hours of tests to prepare for this unmanned test flight to the International Space Station.
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I know how this ends:
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It seems that his space business is doing much better than this car division.
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I hope it goes well. Space-X is doing cool stuff and it will be great if they can start taking humans into space.
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I was gonna say, maybe he expects trouble?
Is it $35K? Cause if it ain’t, I ain’t buying.
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(Video is cued.)
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I’ve got my alarm clock set, Night launches are spectacular.
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While not as seminal as 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: The Year We Make Contact is an underrated movie IMHO. Also, while Clarke’s first Odyssey novel is able to stand toe-to-toe with Kubrick’s film (and is frankly an improvement on The Sentinel short story predecessor), 2010: Odyssey Two falls short of the film and the less said about 2061: Odyssey Three the better. 3001 wasn’t as bad, but that’s damning with faint praise. I love me some Clarke, but I always felt the further he delved into series, the more he was cranking them out to meet demand (or in the case of Rama, just lending his name to authors who needed his actual collaboration).
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Not even sure that the VLA scene exists in Clarke’s book. A scene like that is in Imperial Earth. Maybe the idea was taken from there.
I think Helen Mirren would have made a fine Soyuz pilot if she hadn’t been so tall.
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Also, in the Clarkian vein, I highly recommend this movie which, although a bit unevenly paced, is extremely well written…
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I like both, but it feels almost unfair to compare them with each other; they are like distant relations that share their origins, but come from a vastly different upbringing.
2010 definitely has more funny bits than 2001, though.
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…and born in Britain in 1945.
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IMHO, Peter Hyams was smart not to try to emulate Kubrick’s unique auteur style. He took just enough to relate the two films while still making something different in his own style.
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Ah yeah but her dad was Russian, And her paternal grandfather was a Russian army Colonel.
Its why she was so awesome in 2010. Trying not to sound like she actually knew how to get the accent right.
For what it is worth, I count Oblivion as a sequel to 2001. It is closer to Kubrick’s vision, and possibly a better movie than 2010.
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I know. It’s just that when she was at the right age, a ride in a Soyuz wasn’t an option for a non-SovBlock citizen. Especially one with her background.
Pity that after the four successful Black Arrow launches, the British space programme was downgraded to a man in a tracksuit on a ladder.
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Yup. You either are Kubrick, or you’re not. And Hyams has his own style, no need to emulate someone else’s.
Sometimes I feel he gets a bit carried away when he is also his own cameraman; like maybe here and there the time that went into setting up a shot should have gone in having another look at the script.
But, solid, competent work all around.
I’ve re-watched Outland not so long ago. Given the state-of-the-art of FX at the time and the budget, no reasonable complaints. (He seems to have used the same hair stylist as in 2010.)
I think I’ll have another look at Capricorn One next.
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watched the live feed but they cut off before docking took place
It probably helps to have a well funded customer in the US government who is annoyed with having to pay an ever increasing amount to the Russians to get our astronauts to the space station?
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It also helps that his launches are way cheaper than anybody else’s, but his cars are still pretty pricey.
I think he probably underestimated the difficulty of high volume manufacturing, and the importance of the decades of accumulated organizational experience that the current players have in the auto industry.
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