Constellation

2 comments on Hacker News

1. NegativeLarrikinJul 1, 2024

   Foundation the TV show was so interesting to me that it pushed me to read the book series.

   I'm currently up to Foundation and Earth. The show is different, but I like the changes they made for the show, especially to the emperor's lineage. The show would be painfully boring if it was filmed in the style of the books with characters talking about what happened instead of showing.

   I personally find the mentalics aspect of the books kind of lame, unscientific, and God like. I hope the show does not lean so heavily into them as it continues like the books have, but seems inevitable as I read through the book series.

   Severance and For All Mankind get all the hype but See, Silo, and Invasion have all been great. The only true miss in their sci-fi shows for me has been Constellation. The only more boring sci-fi show I can think of is Beacon 23.

2. Neutralskriticos2Dec 2, 2014

   Sometime in the past fifty years NASA became paralyzed not by budget cuts, but by political in-fighting, fractured organizational structure and lots and lots of red tape. And then there is all that pork that goes around with the entrenched contractors. The tale of the last Mars program that NASA put together is a great example of this. They got handed a technically sound plan to get there in reasonable time with reasonable resources. Then every org-unit in NASA wanted to add their own part to stay relevant and it got so bloated both technically and financially that it had to be put to rest.

   So unless they convince me that they managed to get their internal structural problems under control, I don't think they get anytime to Mars within this century. And certainly not before the private sector does.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program

   p.s.: There is a free movie on YouTube telling the tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcTZvNLL0-w