Wearing suits on the rocket to Titan? - GATTACA (1997) Discussion

[–] GordianNott (137) 5 years ago

I *love* this movie but totally agree with you. That was ridiculous.

Maybe it was style over reality, stressing that in the future, people are so uptight they wear suits to outer space. But it's still ridiculous.

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[–] TexasJack (12515) 5 years ago

Titan has a very strict dress code.

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[–] GordianNott (137) 5 years ago

lol!

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[–] ATG6 (3000) 3 years ago

A wool suit is practical though -- when it's freezing cold on Titan (like 290 below) it keeps you warm. And when the sunlight is hitting you it keeps you cool.

Fun fact: you could fly on Titan just by strapping on some wings, because the atmosphere is thick and gravity is low. And if you fell you wouldn't get hurt, because terminal velocity is so much lower. Of course you would still need to keep warm, hence the wool suit.

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[–] Owlwise (1497) 4 years ago

To me it represents the blasé, superior attitude that the genetically enhanced human beings had about themselves. They were all so sure of their innate, engineered superiority, that nothing really excited or worried them. Going to Titan was just another ordinary day to them. They're all portrayed as being practically flat in emotional tone, so accustomed to thinking of themselves as the masters of their world, self-made gods if you like, that they've lost most or even all of their basic human passion. The business suits worn on what we would consider an awe-inspiring journey visually symbolizes that almost narcissistic ennui. Perhaps a warning about how much of being human could be lost in trying to "improve" humanity.

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[–] NoodlesMacIntosh (74) 4 years ago

I assumed that the tunnel he was entering at the end just went to the dressing rooms and not the actual rocket.

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[–] thingmakersback (1205) 4 years ago

It's been a while since I saw this but... What do we know about the rocket to Titan? Is it not possible that it is very much an ordinary environment? Do you expect passengers on a transatlantic flight to wear flight-suits? Did people on passenger liners making the same trip wear life-jackets and wetsuits? Business attire might be appropriate.

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Exactly. There's a dozen-plus flights a day leaving Gattaca. Who knows if they're the only ones at that. Space travel is commonplace and seeming must more like commercial travel than scientific.

The only real weak point of all that is if it is so common then what's the big deal about Titan? Titan is already one of our most observed moons. A very high point of interest for several reason. Yet they can only send people there every 7 years? That part of it doesn't make sense. And assuming that space travel is as common as the film makes it appear you'd think that getting to Titan would be much easier than the make it out to be. The reason we have the current launch windows that we do is because of our single point of departure and the need to keep fuel consumption down because of weight restrictions on our heaviest rockets. These problems should all have disappeared by the time we're making a dozen or more manned flights a day.

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[–] thingmakersback (1205) 4 years ago

I didn't remember the "every 7 years" thing... That doesn't make sense. Our orbit is so much quicker than Jupiter that we are close (as such things go) almost yearly...

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[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Titan is a moon of Saturn. In any case, that's why the murderer killed the director. A delay in the launch would have meant that he may not be alive when the launch happened. He was an older dude.

The reason why this would still happen today I've outlined. It's not a matter of having the planet close, it's a matter of it lining up multiple planets because of gravitational slingshot techniques used by NASA. The link below outlines the Cassini trajectory for getting to Saturn. While this was more than 20 years ago, sadly I doubt much would change if they needed to do this space shot again. As space exploration expands and becomes more common there will be options open that simply do not exist today.

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/11776/cassini-trajectory/

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[–] thingmakersback (1205) 4 years ago

Yeah... I should look stuff up, before I type. My memory is starting to go wonky, and my astronomical knowledge has always been, mostly, in the service of SF.

As space exploration expands and becomes more common there will be options open that simply do not exist today.

Based mostly on SF, my guess is that these future spaceships are probably making the trip much faster and not requiring Hohmann orbits because of some form of constant thrust drive... Which would provide a shorter trip and more of a shirtsleeve environment - maybe a tolerable fraction of a G. Was there any additional material in the movie to suggest length of the trip or the actual vessel being a torus on a stick or something. Maybe the vehicle I remember the suited office drones boarding was a surface to orbit shuttle?

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[–] laemergency (1) 2 years ago

It wasn’t every 7 years, it was every 70 years in the movie.

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[–] jdforyou1983 (1470) 4 years ago

It's a classy ride to Titan :D

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[–] yvesyves (632) 2 months ago

They are the elite ; superior human beings ; they have to be the most classy all the time

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