Posted on 12/15/2014 5:01:23 PM PST by cripplecreek
A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s.
In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear war an uncomfortable possibility. This leads to Project Ascension, led by a Werner von Braun-esque Abraham Enzmann, who dreamed up a spaceship taller than the Empire State Building that is propelled by nuclear bombs.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Stop animation, pie plates on strings, and guys walking around the hills outside of LA dressed up as crawling eyeballs?
Cylon number 6. Reason enough to watch.
Gotta figure a lot of wealthy people would buy their way on to a project like that and likely be a big source of funding. Few would be willing to give up their social status and I’m guessing social mobility would be nearly impossible.
Its a small sealed society and kind of has to be that way. The wealthy would make up the top level administration. The ship’s crew would be close to the top with the technicians making up the bulk of the middle class. The guys at the bottom would be those who do the production, everyday maintenance, cleaning etc.
I can pretty much guarantee there would be no welfare.
I think I’ve seen that. It counts down from discovery of impending doom to the ship finally leaving.
It's the year 2266, the first year of the original Star Trek series. All Earth populations have undergone the demographic transition, i.e. achieved reasonable standards of living with associated levels of wages, education, empowerment of all sectors of society. Because of this the Earth's population has shrunk considerably, but is now stabilized because those remaining have strong instincts to bear children regardless of the net economic deficit.
The last major populations to undergo the demographic transition were all in Africa. So the vast majority of Earth's population is Black followed by Indian and Chinese.
People have never learned, and will never learn, the lessons of free markets. Between now and then the Earth experiences a number of recession and depressions. However, in 2266 the economy is going well and so there is enough excess money lying around to start a space program run by a highly subsidized group of NASA-like organizations from around the world.
Getting to be one of the first astronauts on-board requires technical skills and political intrigue. Only the most politically correct have a chance for a seat on board.
So basically a "true" Star Trek crew will be exactly like the politically correct crews of The Next Generation only mostly Black with a few Indians and Chinese.
They might have a token Caucasian aboard to keep the replicators operational.
That's what I've been reading in the reviews, that is the only book of his I've read.I was mentioning the book to my wife and she showed interest so she tracked down a copy...She'll have access to it tomorrow. :{)
I am. Don’t have particularly hopes for it though.
On the other hand — it’s hard to get tired of looking at Tricia Helfer.
There was a 1951 SciFi movie called “When Worlds Collide” that addressed that exactly. It was pretty good, but obviously dated. Good candidate for a remake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voW0RiNTbGI
I read a lot of vintage sci fi. Its amazing how much of it has been made into movies over the years. Phillip K Dick wrote “Second Variety” which was a short story that became the “Screamers” flicks.
In his version it was a war on earth between the West and Russia that led to killing robots.
OK, that’s crazy.
Now THAT was a twist I never expected....
Wool meets The Truman Show. Pretty entertaining though. DVR material.
Capricorn 1 but I don’t think anyone on the “ship” knows. The young girl suspects.
It sure would be an effective isolation experiment though.
I bought the series on Vudu so I’ll watch it tomorrow. It does look like a great show. It kind of gives me a Bioshock dystopian vibe.
I watched it. At the end of the first episode they changed the story’s premise 180 degrees. Now the only question is: how soon will the characters realize what is going on, and what will they do about it?
It’d be cool if they were actually in space. Just watched it. Garbage. Gotta show some skin every ten minutes to keep the geeks awake.
More like every twenty five minutes. I keep hoping for the violent nudity.
Would the crew be stuck in the 1960s ,bell bottoms and long hair
Cannot be as good as the crew here
http://www.comicbookbrain.com/_imagery/2013-01-03/UFO-TV-show-british-3.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0iXEIwjOCuA/UoHUXnkRHEI/AAAAAAAAHWA/U2vratYB_fw/s1600/UFO+7.jpg
Michael Caine’s future wife
http://s2.photobucket.com/user/Plynkes/media/ShakiraCaine.jpg.html
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