MovieChat Forums > Ascension (2014) Discussion > Grossly Inefficiencies in Lifestyles, Gl...

Grossly Inefficiencies in Lifestyles, Glass bottles and cups, livestock

posted 9 years ago by Jakealope
24 replies | jump to latest

I can understand having some extra space and comforts for a life time journey. But seriously, livestock? How can they grow the extra grain to feed them and handle their waste? Or have all that booze, and in glass bottles too? Don't forget all the make-up and cosmetics for the women. And would they have the luxury of even ejecting a dead body into space? No doubt they would have to let a human corpse decompose and get recycled just like the carcasses of the livestock. They seem to treat the star ship as if it was a luxury liner that would be no more than 2 weeks from the next port.

I can accept the plot device of a class structure. But how class divergent can you get in a sealed community of 600? How can you have luxury positions like the stewardesses or hair stylists? People will have to know a bit about every important job on the ship, much like even a cook on a submarine has to be competent on all the basic ship's systems. Not to say you wouldn't have a class structure after a while, but you'd think a community that was planned and led by scientists wouldn't strive for some level of egalitarianism. and how can a woman get pregnant and give birth to an "unclaimed" child in a sealed ship?

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

[–] kerryedavis 9 years ago

All good points, of course. And those are just a few of many.

Prepare for the onslaught of "Why can't you suspend disbelief?"

[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

It was still okay inspite of these faults. I can handle bad science easier than bad sociology and planning. After all, it is a small area to house 600 people for 100 years. Just storing enough special dehydrated rations for a spartan diet would be a major payload. I am sure they could grow some plants but most of the food would have to be preloaded. But cows, perfume, booze, come on. It ain't the Queen Mary. Even in Battle Star Galacta, they ended up eating algae for the last 2 years and that was only 4 year voyage and they found some planets and stores to raid along the way.

[–] jalisco555 9 years ago

Not to mention that Galactica actually looked lived in, unlike Ascension which still looks brand new after 50 years. How much paint did they bring along?

[–] BlackJAC 9 years ago

RDM did say that Galactica's "not the Enterprise." Plus she was an older ship to begin with, probably equivalent to a Kitty Hawk-class carrier in real life while the Pegasus was probably closer to a later-model Nimitz or even a Gerald Ford.

Further, Galactica was a warship, which means sparing every expense on glamor because that's money better spent on live ordnance, while Ascension is more cruise liner.

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[–] kelvinmead 9 years ago

following the great image from the power of the internet, mostly made from found facts, we can see that the galactica ship was 1445m long and the enterprise (or closest equivalent to was 1520m long... not too much difference.

they refer to the lower 40's as the bottom of the ship, but im assuming that this is purely living quarters... 40 specific levels of habitation, 600 people, is only 15 people per level. now in uni we had 16 rooms per level and those rooms werent big... and easily fit in a block.

the geometrics could be worked out, that they live in the middle and then theres another 30 odd decks below and 10 decks above, all for the working / engines / ops / medic / schooling / recreations etc...

it would be possible that they would have livestock, but the same genetic issues that they would start to encounter across the humans would be more prevalent across pigs... bred for food, it seems to unlikely.

i can adopt a glassware scenario, but not for 100 years. glass can always be reused, but not easily reproduced in scale.

[image]
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/171/0/1/size_comparison___science_fiction_spaceships_by_dirkloechel-d6lfgdf.jpg
any sci fi nerd needs to take a look at the image... its a work of genius!

[–] BlackJAC 9 years ago

His "she's not the Enterprise" comment wasn't in relation to size but rather prestige: the Enterprise in all her incarnations was the Federation flagship while Galactica is a blue-collar workhorse long overlooked and ovetaken by other ships. I even have a sci-fi novel by David Gerrold where he takes a swing at Trek by saying that a ship simply known as "the Big E" (which was Enterprise CVN-65's nickname) was never sent to the front lines of the interstellar war because she might get destroyed and therefore incinerate public morale.

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[–] kerryedavis 9 years ago

[image]
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/171/0/1/size_comparison___science_fiction_spaceships_by_dirkloechel-d6lfgdf.jpg
any sci fi nerd needs to take a look at the image... its a work of genius!

Nice work, but I can't help notice the Earth Ship Ark didn't seem to be included. Maybe because it would spill off all 4 edges of the chart...

Just as a rough estimate, I would put it at being at least 300,000 meters long. And that's figuring the domes at ONLY about 40km across, which would be small for the purpose.

[–] speculator-1 9 years ago

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/171/0/1/size_comparison___scien ce_fiction_spaceships_by_dirkloechel-d6lfgdf.jpg

---
Blood of Thrones - proceeds to Action Cancer:
http://www.orb-store.com/blood.htm

[–] BlackJAC 9 years ago

Weell, we never saw wherever they grow the vegetables and grain, and they probably use their manure as fertilizer for that portion of the farm. Plastic was too expensive to make at the time the ship "launched," so glass was a lot more likely. Plus it can be recycled by reslagging it. And we are not at the psychological point of recycling human corpses.

There's probably a Navy/Starfleet-esque delineation of job tracks. And the upper/lower-deck split probably happened on its own out of inertia. And their Norplants either malfunction or are removed without permission.

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[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

To keep that much livestock fed, they would need 100s of acres of crops. And they did have plastic back then. And to add to that, I laughed when I saw that furnace the one miscreant bomber worked on. A furnace in a sealed spaceship, get out of here.

[–] kerryedavis 9 years ago

To keep that much livestock fed, they would need 100s of acres of crops. And they did have plastic back then. And to add to that, I laughed when I saw that furnace the one miscreant bomber worked on. A furnace in a sealed spaceship, get out of here.

Occasionally, Dennis Miller talks about the time he spend on Saturday Night Live, and one subject that sometimes comes up is how he and a few other cast members would try to see who could come up with the stupidest idea to actually make it onto the air.

One of their "successes" was called "The Adventures Of Koko, Mishu, And Lebee." One "episode" of which can be seen here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/the-adventures-of-koko/17wmemgv g

The more I think about it, the more it seems like some group of writers etc was doing the same thing to SyFy, with Ascension.

[–] BlackJAC 9 years ago

Yes, plastic did exist back then but making it in large quantities wouldn't become cost-effective until after the ship "launched."

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[–] [email protected] 9 years ago

Yes, plastic did exist back then but making it in large quantities wouldn't become cost-effective until after the ship "launched."

The first Tupperware Party was held in the early '50s and by 1960 Tupperware was big business. They were not the only makers of mass-market plastic containers. Plastic model kits and other plastic toys were commonplace by 1960--I had a whole army of plastic soldiers for example. Melamine dinnerware was also popular in the '50s. Telephones were IIRC made of ABS.

[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

Well, some sort of social stratification would be inevitable considering the trip would span 4 generations. But come on, it was something out of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" replete with stockyards. The intelligent eggheads planners who planned the whole deal would have at least trimmed the inequalities by sharing the unpleasant work as well as the luxuries amongst everyone. How could a small self contained environment survive civil strife?

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

[–] sticksstoneswwiv 9 years ago

No one is going to disagree with you here.

But saying that I really like the retro design of the ship and props.
As silly as much of it is, visually it was fun to explore.

[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

I liked the show too, and part of it was for those reasons of yours. But when it comes to Sci Fi, I can handle some bad science easier than plain dumb concepts.

[–] ughmoretodealwith 9 years ago

Actually hydroponics etc you can grow a ton of food in a small space. On the shoe timeline lower deck living space is cramped because a lot of the lower deck was converted to crop growing.

There are warehouses that in a few levels can outgrow many traditional sized farms at a fraction of the land.

Also orion class ships were devised back in the 1960s and they would have crop growing to feed livestock in order to get protein.

You didn't notice why the lower deckers didn't like the upper deckers. The upper decks were the well maintained areas that were luxurious.

[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

Hydroponics or not, there is no way they can support so much livestock in such a confined space.

What are they doing? Why do they come here?
Some kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

[–] [email protected] 9 years ago

Hydroponics or not, there is no way they can support so much livestock in such a confined space.

Bear in mind that 25,000 square feet of floor space can produce 10,000 heads of lettuce a day.

[–] jprahn01 9 years ago

It only takes a day to grow a head of lettuce? Wowza. That's fast.

[–] unitbob 9 years ago

They reuse the bottles.

While livestock is inefficient, there are good reasons for having some. They will want livestock at their destination. Pigs can eat all their organic waste. Everything should be getting recycled. Which makes me agree with you that they can't be throwing bodies out the airlock.

Most importantly, B12. B12 had not been artificially synthesized yet, so they had to have some livestock, or all die from vitamin deficiency.

[–] Jakealope 9 years ago

That is a good point about the need for livestock on the new world

[–] Leskenn-843-779012 9 years ago

Well did we just see three days worth? I lost track of how many whisky bottles got smashed over people's heads- it seems a popular past time (that and the headbutt)

Assuming one smashed bottle a day - that's almost 19000 already!

[–] mobocracy 9 years ago

The livestock part doesn't seem entirely implausible. An acre of corn produces 150 bushels of corn, and a butchering hog takes about 24 bushels of corn raise. Since the corn figure is for field-raised corn If you assume some kind of growing efficiency from a controlled environment, maybe you could increase yield and increase the number of hogs. They could also be feeding the hogs organic food waste, further cutting the amount of feed necessary to produce them. The hog feces could be used as fertilizer.

An acre of grow space would occupy a circle about 250 feet in diameter, which looks like it would easily fit in a deck of the ship. You could probably figure in some other kinds of efficiencies, too, like a superior crop that produces a greater yield per acre than corn (I just chose that arbitrarily).

Fresh meat at every meal is probably not sustainable, but as a specialty item or something meant to add variety it doesn't seem impossible on a large ship.