What is the deal with all the astronaut stuff we are getting?

[CmdrShep2183]

Apple's "For All Mankind", Netflix "Away", and now this!



What would it take to get the reality show watching masses to watch something with a spaceship in it?

Would it have to be devoid of any overly weird sci fi elements and be chock full of cheesy soap opera?

[Precure]

Probably an effect of Elon Musk's recent popularity.

[Tvtyrant]

Apple's "For All Mankind", Netflix "Away", and now this!



What would it take to get the reality show watching masses to watch something with a spaceship in it?

Would it have to be devoid of any overly weird sci fi elements and be chock full of cheesy soap opera?

Did you really just use the term "masses" to refer to people whose show watching preferences are different from yours?

Here's the thing, space is boring. Those shows are basically soap operas in space anyway, or a fantasy story with gods and space elves, because space is inherently dull.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tvtyrant
Here's the thing, space is boring.

...space is inherently dull.

As someone who used to just about live at the Air & Space Museum, I find this terribly sad.

Space is the absolute opposite of dull. Just look up at the night sky, and start learning about what you see.

[Tvtyrant]

As someone who used to just about live at the Air & Space Museum, I find this terribly sad.

Space is the absolute opposite of dull. Just look up at the night sky, and start learning about what you see.

I know lots about what I see thanks. It's hard to make an interesting story about billion year long processes unless you do it as a Morgan Freeman documentary. Nearly all bodies of knowledge are interesting, it doesn't make them good for television or movies. Space is also 99.9999999999% near vacuum with some permanently out of reach bits that we aren't going to reach.

Ship crews slowly meandering through space for 2 years to die of a slight problem with their co2 removers when they are a week out from Mars is realistic, is that a good show? What about watching engineers spend 8 years arguing over food packet distribution?

People watch some space stories, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Martian. The stories are either focused on the people or on impossible speed exploration, actual space exploration is done by romote control robots from a command center.

Edit: Let me clarify so we can avoid the inevitable snippy fight. Human stories are overwhelmingly about people. Interstellar was about Love despite being visually about how crazy the cosmos were, Star Trek is about the crew not the ship, etc. The question is if space ship crews are still interesting after 100 years of exploring the idea, and the answer has been a resounding "eh."

Whether vacuum and gas clouds is scientifically interesting isn't really a factor into whether space ship crews are still interesting.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tvtyrant
...with some permanently out of reach bits that we aren't going to reach.

On this we'll have to agree to disagree.

And the rest as well.

[Tvtyrant]

On this we'll have to agree to disagree.

And the rest as well.

Sounds like a plan.

[An Enemy Spy]

{{scrubbed}}

[DavidSh]

Just addressing the question in the thread title, I think part of it is that last year was the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. (We all believe in the moon landing, don't we?)

[Rodin]

(We all believe in the moon landing, don't we?)

Sure, there's even a great documentary about it called Iron Sky.

[Fyraltari]

I know lots about what I see thanks. It's hard to make an interesting story about billion year long processes unless you do it as a Morgan Freeman documentary. Nearly all bodies of knowledge are interesting, it doesn't make them good for television or movies. Space is also 99.9999999999% near vacuum with some permanently out of reach bits that we aren't going to reach.

Ship crews slowly meandering through space for 2 years to die of a slight problem with their co2 removers when they are a week out from Mars is realistic, is that a good show? What about watching engineers spend 8 years arguing over food packet distribution?

People watch some space stories, Star Wars, Star Trek, The Martian. The stories are either focused on the people or on impossible speed exploration, actual space exploration is done by romote control robots from a command center.

Edit: Let me clarify so we can avoid the inevitable snippy fight. Human stories are overwhelmingly about people. Interstellar was about Love despite being visually about how crazy the cosmos were, Star Trek is about the crew not the ship, etc. The question is if space ship crews are still interesting after 100 years of exploring the idea, and the answer has been a resounding "eh."

Whether vacuum and gas clouds is scientifically interesting isn't really a factor into whether space ship crews are still interesting.

Good point, but have you considered:

Spoiler: Why space is interesting

Show

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! SPACE! SPACE! SPACE! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! SPACE! SPACESPACESPACESPACE! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAACE! SPACE!

[Tvtyrant]

Good point, but have you considered:

Spoiler: Why space is interesting

Show

SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! SPACE! SPACE! SPACE! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! SPACE! SPACESPACESPACESPACE! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAACE! SPACE!

You make a persuasive argument, I withdraw my comments :P

[Caledonian]

Show types sometimes come in cycles - people have repeatedly tried to craft shows about the space program, and they never go anywhere. Movies have an easier job, because their inherent limits on duration both force them and allow them to tell stories with a definite arc and definite end. The space program has neither of these.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Tvtyrant
You make a persuasive argument, I withdraw my comments :P

Now I wish I'd thought of that.

[Fyraltari]

You make a persuasive argument, I withdraw my comments :P

Now I wish I'd thought of that.

[Ramza00]

Nostalgia cycles. If you were 5 to 20 at 1970 (actually July 20, 1969) it mattered to you.

If you missed those 3 key years of '69 to '72 then you realized that Space is boring even if you find some aspects of Sci-Fiction to be cool (aka it is more Star Trek than Landing on the Moon.)

-----

Note 5 to 20 at 1970 lines up pretty well with the Baby Boomer generation. Gen X is 1965 and later and thus they were too young to remember the moon landing from a first hand perspective.

Due to Demographics of who gets to greenlight shows, and trying to interest an existing market that is why we are seeing more astronaut stuff but it is a cycle and it will move past this temporary surge soon enough. (One reason for the recent temporary surge is people are wanting more hope in the last 10 years or so.)

[Caledonian]

I agree with everything just said, but - turning to the space program for hope? That seems... odd.

[Kitten Champion]

I don't even understand the premise of the thread.

I mean, yes, I understand it because it's the same thread this - whatever it is - always makes, but in this case the specifics allude me.

What would it take to get the reality show watching masses to watch something with a spaceship in it?

But, you just listed three series with spaceships in them made in the present year. Sure, they aren't magical spaceships that run on made-up physics, but why should they be?

Would it have to be devoid of any overly weird sci fi elements and be chock full of cheesy soap opera?

..but space operas are "chock full of cheesy soap opera" material. It's a genre of heightened reality and big emotions... that's the operatic part.

Also, why should "overly weird sci-fi elements" be a goal we want "the masses" to ingest? Like, those elements still exists - and an imaginative alternative history is pretty nonstandard in my opinion - but the same question could be asked "would the masses need 'splosions, lasers, CGI aliens, and non-scientific nonsense in general in order to watch any science-related fiction?"

Which, apparently they don't -- at least in the opinion of Disney, Apple, and Netflix.

[Ramza00]

I agree with everything just said, but - turning to the space program for hope? That seems... odd.

Two different things happen and these things happen in different people though I bet it is theoretically possible to have both energies in the same person.

1) There is a human cognitive bias for us to be nostalgia about things in the past. Furthermore we blunt the negative experiences while remembering fondly the positive ones during that time. Even when something was traumatic we do not "re-experience" the pain, we instead merely internalize a shortcut of "do not do that" and the pain is blunted. But not everyone has trauma and many people have fond childhood memories of 5 to 20 of that timeframe and due to the cognitive bias we block out the pain and enhance the positive.

More on this from a video that I adore.



2) Some people see Space as an escape of their daily problems for somehow it would be different. Everything will work together with a goal and it will be mechanically elegant and you will simply not have problems once we go to space. Such ideas in the person mind are often highly individualistic or highly collective depending on their politics, so on and so on. (I love the Red Mars trilogy for Kim Stanley Robinson does a wonderful job eviseraterating this idea in his book about people who go to mars and later terraform it.)

[Caledonian]

It's just that, in the real world, the space program has pretty much been a dead end.

When I was in college, some overly optimistic administrator decided it would be a good idea to recruit 'inspirational' people and get them to live in the dorms with the students. They got a local guy who became an astronaut and spent some time in the ISS.

As far as I know, no one ever spoke to him.

One day I was in the laundry room, reading a textbook and waiting for my laundry to finish. He walked in, I barely noticed. Suddenly he said "Excuse me, would you like to know what it was like to go into space?" I said something like "No, not really." And he walked out.

No one cared.

I believe he joined the local school board.

[Mechalich]

It should be noted that a handful of shows on a similar topic released as a similar time does not a trend make. We are currently in the middle of an absolute deluge of content due to the combination of the pandemic, and the "Streaming Wars," between more services than can successfully exist over the long term. Currently Disney, Netflix, Apple, HBO, CBS, NBC, and a variety of marginal or niche services (Quibi, etc.) are all competing for subscribers to the point that they are producing content in the full and assured knowledge that lots of it will never recoup its costs, just so they can constantly keep announcing new and exciting sounding stuff in order to keep people from clicking 'unsubscribe.'

A small cluster of grounded, non-sf, space exploration vehicles is merely a statistical anomaly at this point, not any sort of real trend.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Caledonian
No one cared.

This isn’t the fault of the space program, and says nothing about anything, other than the apathy of some college students.

Originally Posted by Mechalich
It should be noted that a handful of shows on a similar topic released as a similar time does not a trend make.

…A small cluster of grounded, non-sf, space exploration vehicles is merely a statistical anomaly at this point, not any sort of real trend.

I was just about to make this point. Two or three shows is not exactly a massive influx, so the thread's initial premise is flawed.

[Caledonian]

This isn’t the fault of the space program

No, it is. The actual science gets done with unmanned probes. The ISS was, and is, a complete waste of time and money.

[Ramza00]

No, it is. The actual science gets done with unmanned probes. The ISS was, and is, a complete waste of time and money.

The ISS was good for biology science not exploration or understanding our solar system science.

[Palanan]

Some physicists and astronomers get sore about human spaceflight, claiming it distracts from the "real" science, but long-duration spaceflight is every bit as valid a research topic.

More pragmatically, without human spaceflight there would be zero public support for funding any of those probes, in which case they wouldn't get off the ground.

That said, discussions about whether or not human spaceflight is worthwhile, and whether or not extrasolar missions are feasible, should probably be taken up in a separate thread.

[Rakaydos]

It's because "The Martian" did well.

[Caledonian]

It probably is that simple.

[Fyraltari]

It's just that, in the real world, the space program has pretty much been a dead end.

When I was in college, some overly optimistic administrator decided it would be a good idea to recruit 'inspirational' people and get them to live in the dorms with the students. They got a local guy who became an astronaut and spent some time in the ISS.

As far as I know, no one ever spoke to him.

One day I was in the laundry room, reading a textbook and waiting for my laundry to finish. He walked in, I barely noticed. Suddenly he said "Excuse me, would you like to know what it was like to go into space?" I said something like "No, not really." And he walked out.

No one cared.

I believe he joined the local school board.

This is weird to me. Like I don’t deny it happened but no-One was interested in what it was like to go to space? Really? No-one asked even the most basic questions about zero-gravity or the food up there?

[Yora]

"Stop the planet. I want to get off."

[Azuresun]

This is weird to me. Like I don’t deny it happened but no-One was interested in what it was like to go to space? Really? No-one asked even the most basic questions about zero-gravity or the food up there?

In Mike Massimino's autobiography Spaceman, he mentions that for quite a long time, space exploration did have a serious image problem--it went from the glamorous Right Stuff generation to being presented as very clever, very dull people fiddling around with rocks and ants. It's something that's been reversed recently, as it's possible to actually see what's going on up there, and there's been a push to actually get across how cool it is.

I agree with everything just said, but - turning to the space program for hope? That seems... odd.

I'm going to be the one to say it, human space exploration is romantic (as well as being vital to our long-term future as a species) and that's a purely good thing, to push back against the jadedness and cynicism that's damaging our collective psyche. Yeah, I said it, I'm not taking it back, 1v1 me irl. Anybody who says it's a waste of money or that we should spend it on the environment of this world has no sense of scale with regard to how much gets splurged on finding a 2% better way to blow people up from the other side of the planet.