Did people miss something completely?


I have been reading some of the reviews on this film and I cannot understand why people are complaining about there being no time delay between messages from Earth to the Pegasus crew.

I distinctly remember when they were on Mars they were told that a storm was due 6 minutes behind this message. I took this to mean that Earth allowed for the time the message took to reach Mars that is why they used the phrase 'behind this message'. Did other people interpret this the same as me?

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As far as I could see, there was always a time delay. They mentioned it extensively in the Mars segment where they were talking about the usefulness of telling them to return to the ship - one of the characters says: "if we tell them now the message might get there in time to make a difference".

I don't recall any part of the show after the ship leaves Earth orbit where any interaction of ground control with the crew was more than one message coming in followed by a response. That's how the time delay would work.

Just because they might edit it to make conversations make sense, that doesn't mean they're ignoring the time delay. It just means they're editing it out.

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Thank you for pointing this out. Since we made this show back in 2004 people's stupid comments about the lack of time delay have really annoyed me. We spent years making this series and would never have made such a stupid mistake as that. Your accurate observations are perfect. Thank you. Spread the word!!

Chris Riley (Producer Space Odyssey)

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Another question - maybe I have missed something else completely ;-?

- At the comet, why doesn't the hull depressurize when ship & astronauts get punctured by micro meteorites?

Possible answer(s):
a) They have invented some sort of self-sealing hull material, and
b) the injured astronaut is wearing a basic spacesuit when he is injured, the room he's in isn't depressurizing rapidly, so he doesn't die (luckily).

I seem to recall there actually were micrometeorite strikes on Mir, and these could be repaired. Such impacts are not as catastrophic as one would imagine. But in a massive storm such as in the film -?

An additional word on the time delay issue: In the comet scenario, earth-ship transmission lag is about 8-9 hrs. With these delays, it should be clear that in any emergency ground "control" can do nothing but twist their fingers. Still, they talk about "taking control of the ship". A quite stupid idea IMHO, and only practical if the Pegasus crew had completely lost control while ground station magically had not. They can never know what's going on just when they receive their data, and any attempt to interfere without warning could indeed be fatal.

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They have the ability to manually override the take over - if they are still able to function.

Ground Control has to act fast because of the delay associated with sending signals. Their hands were full taking care of their very lives.


The only think that troubled me was the solo flight to Io - that doesn't quite work for operational sense to send one person to the surface of any planet or satellite even if it has a stable surface. You need redundancy, you need rescue operator, you could fall - trip - anything. Solo trip to a moon nobody has ever landed on in Jupiter's radiation zone with a spacesuit that hasn't been field tested yet with it's personal magnetic field in the field - sounds - interesting.

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That scene where the astronaut gets injured really bothers me and doesn't make sense as far as I can tell. He is seen standing in the hull with the controls. He has no protection of any suit...Then you see dust in the area around him with blood on the windows, blood on his hands,and blood on his chest area...Obviously the parts of the comet have hit and entered his area of the ship....He is struggling to get a gas mask on....How is he surviving the breach of the hull?

Anyway, otherwise the show is amazing and so beautifully done...SO realistic!

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I also remember that the Mission Control fellow whilst being interviewed said that the Time Delays in the conversation had been edited out for the viewer's benefit.

Having watched this brilliant film about 10 times so far it never fails to bring a feeling of hope that one day this voyage will be real. Until then we can but dream.

Walk Quietly throughthis Earth
Leave nothing but Smiles and Pawprints

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