Pioneer 10, the first probe to venture past the asteroid belt, has gone silent. (1 Viewer)

[Mike Voigt]

Collect together every human character in the movie and the poor thing wouldn't have had enough brains to coat a canape.

Good one! Especially certain 'pilots'...

 

[Julian Reville]

The signal and the two previous signals were very faint. The Deep Space Network heard nothing from Pioneer 10 during a final attempt at contact on Feb. 7. No more attempts are planned.

Poor little guy. I bet he's lonesome as hell. Sniff, sniff.

 

[Kevin M]

Pioneer 10, the first probe to venture past the asteroid belt, has gone silent.

...I guess Starman is on his way.


...Voyager..Pioneer..whatever..

 

[Yee-Ming]

or for that matter, the effluxion of time on a cosmic scale, Pioneer 10 will reach some other star in about 2 billion years, quite possible that the human race will be extinct by then.

hence my own pet theory (unrefined that it is) that extra-terrestrial intelligence is certainly possible and indeed likely, but given that faster-than-light travel appears (presently) impossible, we'll never have any contact with such intelligences, simply because of the sheer size of the universe and the time-scale involved.

it may well be that ET intelligence once existed within, say, 20 light years of Earth, but who's to say they didn't flourish, and then go extinct, a mere two million years before the rise of Humanity? on the cosmic scale, two million years is a mere sneeze, but from humanity's limited time-scale it's an eon ago.

or just to bring it closer, perhaps some three million years from now single-cell amoebas currently on/in Jupiter will develop into multi-celled organisms floating in those hydrogen clouds and gain sentience, but we'll be long gone.

 

[Dominik Droscher]

Remember in Hollywood's blatant desecration of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers where a graphic was shown demonstrating how the bugs are lobbing asteroids at Earth from clear across the freaking galaxy? We won't bother with how the rocks managed to get here so quickly (nor how well they were aimed). But the public at large has no appreciation whatsoever of the distances involved. Thus, Hollywood can get away with the nonsense it calls "science fiction" (stuff that no writer of literary SF ever could get away with).

Wasn't that the point of the asteroids, to show how easily media can control us? Did we ever see evidence that bugs were responsible for them, did it ever make sense in the context of the movie? Humans found a planet feasible for them to live on. Only problem, some nasty bugs are in their way. So how can they get rid of them without being blamed of genocide.

But I don't want to sidetrack the topic (and by no means I want to put Starship Troopers in the same league with 2001), just a short comment on my observation that for me Starship Troopers goes a little deeper than many seem to appreciate.


Anyway, back on topic. I was one of the people who stayed up till early morning in Germany to see the first pictures Pathfinder sent back from Mars. It was a magic moment, and I wished I would have been able to witness more of the other milestones in Space Travel humanity had in the last century.

 

[BrianW]

Wasn't that the point of the asteroids, to show how easily media can control us?

That was my take on it as well. The media were capable of nothing, if not propaganda, as portrayed in the movie. I haven't read the novel (I shamefully admit), but I also took the impossible asteroid-lob theory as nothing more than a means to justify all-out, genocidal war in the eyes of a gullible public. Perhaps I see satire where there is none, but I'm too busy to check out the Director's Commentary to find out. If someone else has listened to the commentary for Starship Troopers, I'd be grateful in you'd chime in here.

Oh, right - Pioneer 10! Man, what a great gizmo that was. Outer Space, and all that. (Apologies to the thread author for straying off topic.)

 

[Ashley Seymour]

I don't think 7 billion miles is fathomable to most people; however,

Since Jack just posted a review of The Day The Earth Stood Still and the DVD I though he would mention that the space ship had traveled immense distances - over 200 million miles - to reach the earth. Unless you were an astromomer in 1950 a billion miles would have ment nothing to you, but 200 million was something that you could get your brain around.

Maybe that was the mirror Earth planet that orbited on the other side of the sun. You know, the one we can't see because it is always blocked out by the sun.

Carl Sagan said that we could send probes throughout the galaxy and it would take about one million years to start getting information back. If we could do that, then why not other civilizations that sent out their probes 10 million, 50 million, 100 million years ago?

 

[Vickie_M]

Wasn't that the point of the asteroids, to show how easily media can control us?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was my take on it as well. The media were capable of nothing, if not propaganda, as portrayed in the movie. I haven't read the novel (I shamefully admit), but I also took the impossible asteroid-lob theory as nothing more than a means to justify all-out, genocidal war in the eyes of a gullible public. Perhaps I see satire where there is none, but I'm too busy to check out the Director's Commentary to find out. If someone else has listened to the commentary for Starship Troopers, I'd be grateful in you'd chime in here.

That was my interpretation as well and I never had any reason to change my mind. I did listen to the commentary but it's been a while and I can't remember specifics about the asteroid lob. It was made VERY clear, though, that the movie was meant as a satire. I knew that without being told, but it never fails to amaze me how people take that movie so seriously (as in seriously hating it). I think the movie's hilarious! I'll have to listen to the commentary again.

(No, I haven't read the book and don't care how it was changed.)


Good going Pioneer 10!

 

[Yee-Ming]

(No, I haven't read the book and don't care how it was changed.)

may I suggest you read the book? it is quite good, leaving aside how one may feel about the movie.

 

[Vickie_M]

may I suggest you read the book? it is quite good, leaving aside how one may feel about the movie.

I like how you put that, thank you. Normally I get "the movie is crap, you should read the book" which, since I really like the movie, leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. ST the movie isn't on the same level as Lord of the Rings, but the same problem arises when book lovers who hate the movie try to get non-readers who loved the movie to read the books by putting down the movie. Luckily, I read the books after I saw the (1st) movie, but before I ran into jerkwads like that who probably would have put me off the books forever. Or recently, Chicago-the-stage-play people who hate the movie saying that people really should see the stage play if they want to see Chicago done well. I just want to smack them around.

Starship Troopers the book is on my list of "one of these days" books to read. The problem is that there are hundreds of books on that list. I don't ever consider the movie as a substitute for reading the book though. They're always separate things to me.

Back to space things!

 

[BrianW]

that pre-supposes that those civilisations bothered to send such long-term probes, AND that they are still around to listen to the responses.

I understand why encountering sub-luminal, alien probes would pre-suppose the former (of course), but why would it pre-suppose the latter?

I don't think it's logical to presume that, since a particular civilization died out, that it never sent any long range probes. That, to me, would be like presuming that a person who dies young would surely never have bought a 30-year mortgage.

 

[Yee-Ming]

sorry, I meant that for the civilisation to actually receive they data, they must have sent the probes millions of years ago AND survived to receive the data, if that makes sense -- hence two conditions would have to be fulfilled.

of course, us being at the receiving end of an alien probe (obscure South Park reference...) only proves the first condition, and not the second.

one could argue that the Pioneers and Voyagers are our equivalent of sending long range probes: now the question is will we survive the millions of years for them to get anywhere?

 

[BrianW]

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

And only time will tell.

 

[Josh Lowe]

Remember in Hollywood's blatant desecration of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers where a graphic was shown demonstrating how the bugs are lobbing asteroids at Earth from clear across the freaking galaxy?

Umm.. Jack.. I think you missed the fact that the entire story in the film version of Starship Troopers is dry and satirical. The whole point of the movie is that the bugs were not attacking us, that our government was manufacturing consent by villainizing these creatures for heinous acts that they almost certainly didn't commit. We then encroached on their homes and after initially being beaten down, ended up prevailing in conquering them.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Sorry Josh, while YES it is satirical, and a fun movie as a stand alone

It is 99% BLASPHEMY

There is EXACTLY 1/2 of a scene intact from the novel, plus the fact that Johnny is whipped, the names, and the fact that Buenos Ares is blown up

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Sounds like we need a "Starship Troopers" thread in Movies !!!!

 

[Ashley Seymour]

Sounds like we need a "Starship Troopers" thread in Movies !!!!

There was one last year titled something like "Does anyone get Starship Troopers?"

With prohibitions against discussions of politics and religon it didn't seem to really take off.

The movie was pretty entertaining for me. But then I never read the book - and was not spoiled by not having it followed closely.

 

[Kirk Gunn]

Good point... Too bad.

 

[BrianW]

What? What are you talking about? As far as I know, there's NO rule against the discussion of religion or politics as portrayed in a movie. Has this changed? Why can't we have a discussion about the political satire in Starship Troopers?

I mean besides the fact that this is the wrong section, and the originator of this thread might get mad for going off topic? Besides all that, what's stopping us?

Personally, I think the bugs hurled large rocks at us because Pioneer 10 crashed on their planet and killed a multi-segmented dignitary during a regurgitation ceremony. (How's that for keeping it on topic? What's-his-name can't get mad at me now!)