I love the details in this film. Things like the winged people flying on Titan, possible due to its dense atmosphere. There are things on these other worlds that we could never experience here.
Even the title has multiple meanings to it:
In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Ancient Greeks called these lights πλάνητες ἀστέρες (planetes asteres, "wandering stars") or simply πλανῆται (planētai, "wanderers"), from which today's word "planet" was derived.
For me, Carl Sagan's voice is incredibly inspirational. He knows just what to say and how to say it to elicit a beautiful and optimistic feeling of wonderment.
And the visuals were stunning. A tantalizing glimpse into the next century or two of human exploration and experience.
[Some great details - like the Earth coastlines used in the asteroid interior (mentioned on the film's website) and the Taijitu in the crater at 1:54].
Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
> It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
We already collaborate for the exploration of the solar system, via robotic probes and giant telescopes. That's good enough. Colonization is an all different matter, and a weird one if you ask me. Earth is the largest place with a solid ground in the Solar system, and it's by far the most hospitable. Settling on an other planet like mars would cost an insane amount of money[1] and would at best double the available real estate for our species. It's not so sure it would be worth it, especially considering that a lot of people would end up having contributed for something that other people will benefit from.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
I imagine this cooperation will happen, probably towards the middle of this century, as resources become ever more scarce and general ignorance of the population at large decreases.
Wow; that was incredible. I wish it were three hours long.
That dude floating in that debris belt (ring of Saturn?) -- that looked a bit dangerous. Hopefully he had a force field around him.
There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
> There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
I agree with this 100%. But while we're moving outward, however slowly, don't forget Sagan's Caveat:
"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand."
Absolutely, go see what's across the street. But make sure your house is clean and safe.
Well, it's not 3 hours (the Wikipedia page lists a 42 minute running time), but you might be interested in In Saturn's Rings, a documentary nearing release made using only photographs from space missions:
You should really go see interstellar, I saw it last night and it is probably the closest thing to a 3hr version of that short video that exists. They are both really fantastic films. I would also add that interstellar is worth seeing in IMAX if you can.
Art and source photos aside, this link is sort of disappointing. For example,
>As Mars' diameter is about half of the Earths, the elevator cable wouldn't have to be as long to reach geostationary orbit and due to the lighter gravitational pull it wouldn't suffer as much stress from its weight.
Mars' diameter has nothing to do with the distance to stationary orbit, which is a result of gravity (and thus its mass).
I would like to see a full length Wanderers movie. The optimistic feeling of adventure, travel and belief in science, would make it well worth spending a couple of hours watching.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is apparently being made into a TV series now. This guy must work on the visuals for that. He gets it; he really, really gets it.
I read KSR's Mars Trilogy after hearing about it repeatedly on /r/spacex and I highly recommend it. In fact, given that it is a 20 year old work at this time, I think it has stood the test of time very well.
I'm glad to hear it's being made into a tv series, but I worry that you really need a high budget to make it come alive (like Game of Thrones)
Don't forget that you can download the video using youtube-dl (if you like me, get annoyed that Vimeo doesn't continue buffering when you pause it, and deletes the current buffer if you rewind)
Wander? From earth into the rest of the
solar system? If we'd grown up anywhere else
in this solar system, then the place, the
dream destination, in this solar system would
be earth.
Since I'm already here, no way do
I want to leave!
Send some machines to gather
some data and transmit it back to us here on
earth? Fine. Maybe terrific. Go there, in
person? For me, no way!
If someone offered me the chance to travel the solar system, watch the sun rise on mars, jump off vertical cliffs on a moon, see jupiter and saturn up close, ... I would do it in a heartbeat
Do I think human space travel is feasible or even necessary at least at this point in time? No, not by a long shot. Machines can do a better job and will probably always be able to do it better if technology keeps advancing. Machines don't need air, water, food, living space, and that's some of the stuff needed just to keep us alive in an hostile environment, all resources can be instead focused on the mission itself.
I think that people tend to forget that we don't just happen live on planet Earth, we where born by it, molded by it :)
If we'd evolved anywhere else then that place would probably be by far the best possible habitat for us too.
Although If we could somehow get rid of the human body, just take a brain, equip it with a neural interface of some kind and put it in a water tank ...
If you'd grown up or evolved elsewhere in the solar system, there's a high chance Earth would be inhospitable to you, just like Mars is to us. Your dream home would be Saturn, or Venus, etc.
The universe has a history of destroying the majority of life on Earth. It would be naive to think that statistics don't apply to the human race.
I was immediately reminded of Robinson's work a few seconds in. There is so much to discover out there and the extremes of physical state and sheer size make it so hard to imagine it all. His writing offer a window into that world and this short was a great visualization of it.
As a first step, I wonder how feasible it would be to have a constant presence around these planets and moons? A 'standard' orbiter, mass produced? I was reading about the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer mission, and it's incredibly exciting, but it won't get there until the 2030s, and even then it'll be a temporary presence.
The reason I think of this is that I recently came across this animation from New Horizons showing a 330km-high eruption that recently happened on Io:
It's utterly captivating, at least to me, and I can't help but wonder what effect it would have on the public's imaginations to be able to see images like that every day, in high definition, from all over our solar system.
hollywood blockbusters have many shots that are very labor intensive, and they can be pretty cavalier about throwing money at a problem. For example, films with a lot of mixed live action and CGI can take a lot of manual frame by frame work, and anything involving realistic character animation is a huge time sink. Not to mention huge server farms.
It looks like this film uses a limited number of shots (no cutting rapidly like action films), takes advantage of a lot of nasa and other imagery/data (no army of matte painters), limits characters to simple walking movements (no Pixar gesticulating), and probably keeps the particle effects and physics sims minimal (no computational fluids sims for glorious explosions).
Often we forget how far we've come, and how far we have to go. It's easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of regular life. When I listen to Carl Sagan sometimes I feel like I've glimpsed a bigger perspective.
[+] [-] Kronopath|11 years ago|reply
Even the title has multiple meanings to it:
In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Ancient Greeks called these lights πλάνητες ἀστέρες (planetes asteres, "wandering stars") or simply πλανῆται (planētai, "wanderers"), from which today's word "planet" was derived.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
[+] [-] abrichr|11 years ago|reply
For me, Carl Sagan's voice is incredibly inspirational. He knows just what to say and how to say it to elicit a beautiful and optimistic feeling of wonderment.
And the visuals were stunning. A tantalizing glimpse into the next century or two of human exploration and experience.
Thank you for this.
Edit: Reddit thread at http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2nseb3/wanderers...
[+] [-] arethuza|11 years ago|reply
My favourite part: BASE jumping from Verona Rupes - the tallest known cliff in the Solar System - somewhere from 5km to 20km vertical:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110404.html
By comparison the tallest vertical drop on Earth is on the surreal Mount Thor at 1250m:
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/mount-thor-greatest-ver...
[Some great details - like the Earth coastlines used in the asteroid interior (mentioned on the film's website) and the Taijitu in the crater at 1:54].
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cosmichorizons8|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] evaneykelen|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grondilu|11 years ago|reply
We already collaborate for the exploration of the solar system, via robotic probes and giant telescopes. That's good enough. Colonization is an all different matter, and a weird one if you ask me. Earth is the largest place with a solid ground in the Solar system, and it's by far the most hospitable. Settling on an other planet like mars would cost an insane amount of money[1] and would at best double the available real estate for our species. It's not so sure it would be worth it, especially considering that a lot of people would end up having contributed for something that other people will benefit from.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YDnGHaXdxw
[+] [-] einrealist|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] increment_i|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hiphopyo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blisterpeanuts|11 years ago|reply
That dude floating in that debris belt (ring of Saturn?) -- that looked a bit dangerous. Hopefully he had a force field around him.
There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
[+] [-] a3n|11 years ago|reply
I agree with this 100%. But while we're moving outward, however slowly, don't forget Sagan's Caveat:
"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand."
Absolutely, go see what's across the street. But make sure your house is clean and safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_S...
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
[+] [-] jimbosis|11 years ago|reply
http://www.insaturnsrings.com/watch/
http://www.insaturnsrings.com/home/ (with another teaser video not on the "watch" page)
[+] [-] prbuckley|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yogrish|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agrona|11 years ago|reply
>As Mars' diameter is about half of the Earths, the elevator cable wouldn't have to be as long to reach geostationary orbit and due to the lighter gravitational pull it wouldn't suffer as much stress from its weight.
Mars' diameter has nothing to do with the distance to stationary orbit, which is a result of gravity (and thus its mass).
[+] [-] thomasfl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiritplumber|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nkoren|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martythemaniak|11 years ago|reply
I'm glad to hear it's being made into a tv series, but I worry that you really need a high budget to make it come alive (like Game of Thrones)
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ews|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tobr|11 years ago|reply
You might be interested to learn that Erik Wernquist is also the person who created Crazy Frog some ten years ago.
[+] [-] shmerl|11 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_rover#mediaviewer/File:Ma...
See also gallery here: http://www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers/gallery.html
[+] [-] rbanffy|11 years ago|reply
People dropped by and asked where I took the picture. I loved to explain to them the picture was taken by a robot on Mars.
There is also another one, with a small Earth shining above the horizon. That too was my wallpaper, and that too caused countless people to be amazed.
Inspiring people is important.
[+] [-] Corrado|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hmottestad|11 years ago|reply
http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
[+] [-] dredmorbius|11 years ago|reply
Youtube-dl is my first choice though (and is how I viewed this video).
[+] [-] graycat|11 years ago|reply
Since I'm already here, no way do I want to leave!
Send some machines to gather some data and transmit it back to us here on earth? Fine. Maybe terrific. Go there, in person? For me, no way!
[+] [-] hereonbusiness|11 years ago|reply
Do I think human space travel is feasible or even necessary at least at this point in time? No, not by a long shot. Machines can do a better job and will probably always be able to do it better if technology keeps advancing. Machines don't need air, water, food, living space, and that's some of the stuff needed just to keep us alive in an hostile environment, all resources can be instead focused on the mission itself.
I think that people tend to forget that we don't just happen live on planet Earth, we where born by it, molded by it :)
If we'd evolved anywhere else then that place would probably be by far the best possible habitat for us too.
Although If we could somehow get rid of the human body, just take a brain, equip it with a neural interface of some kind and put it in a water tank ...
[+] [-] kylegordon|11 years ago|reply
The universe has a history of destroying the majority of life on Earth. It would be naive to think that statistics don't apply to the human race.
[+] [-] interesting_guy|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hiphopyo|11 years ago|reply
Wouldn't it be nice if Erik Wernquist was in charge of the filmatization of "2312" (the novel that inspired his "Iapetus Ridge" scene).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)
[+] [-] pmr_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Osmium|11 years ago|reply
The reason I think of this is that I recently came across this animation from New Horizons showing a 330km-high eruption that recently happened on Io:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon)#mediaviewer/File:Tvas...
It's utterly captivating, at least to me, and I can't help but wonder what effect it would have on the public's imaginations to be able to see images like that every day, in high definition, from all over our solar system.
[+] [-] frinxor|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0&index=1&list=PLF...
And of course, Cosmos, which is where all the audio is from in all these videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dADUBcoEEHw&index=1&list=PLB...
[+] [-] hysan|11 years ago|reply
> This video contains content from eOne, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.
[+] [-] ogig|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erjiang|11 years ago|reply
It looks like this film uses a limited number of shots (no cutting rapidly like action films), takes advantage of a lot of nasa and other imagery/data (no army of matte painters), limits characters to simple walking movements (no Pixar gesticulating), and probably keeps the particle effects and physics sims minimal (no computational fluids sims for glorious explosions).
[+] [-] dmix|11 years ago|reply
Seriously. How are Hollywood CGI films so poorly made when this is possible?
[+] [-] airlocksoftware|11 years ago|reply
http://vimeo.com/2822787
Often we forget how far we've come, and how far we have to go. It's easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of regular life. When I listen to Carl Sagan sometimes I feel like I've glimpsed a bigger perspective.
[+] [-] Ygg2|11 years ago|reply
I especially like the world play here. Latin Planetes (as in planets) means wanderer. The name of this film can be understood as Planets.
[+] [-] tomr_stargazer|11 years ago|reply
'A planet (from Ancient Greek ἀστὴρ πλανήτης (astēr planētēs), meaning "wandering star")' > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
[+] [-] mturmon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anw|11 years ago|reply
I've finally gotten into some of Philip K Dick's works, as well as adventuring in the game Eve Online.
Both make me question how far we could be in technology, medicine, civilization, if we all could work together and not have schisms divide us.
I suppose it's the same as wishing for a utopia, though.
[+] [-] ijk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T-A|11 years ago|reply