Just finished watching a film called Sunshine, a bleak future where our sun is dying and Earth being subjected to the deep freeze. Our last hope is a starship named the Icarus II, on a go for broke mission to drop a “stellar bomb” made with all the Earths remaining fissionable mass, into the sun with hopes that the detonation may jump start the sun and spare humanity from its cold grave.
I’m not really a big student of Greek mythology, let along mythology in general (never had the chance) but I do know of Icarus – who flew to close to the sun, and died as his wings melted away from the heat. I can’t think who in their bloody right mind would dare name a ship Icarus in such a dreadful scenario lol (no offense). As far as I know, it is thought that our sun should last billions of years pardoning anything truly catastrophic! And thus, only an immortal might have to worry about its eventual death: the rest of us mortals can just be worried about a planet killer sized asteroid or alien invasion obliterating our world before we manage to annihilate ourselves… be it fast or slow in coming. (I hope man lives to see GOD putting an end to our world, not our own stupidity being the cause)
Sunshine is a very interesting movie, and the stressful-confined-get-me-the-hell-out-of-here feel of some of the scenes remind me of the old Alien. I’m not even going to think about the probability of surviving the oh-shit-it’s-come-to-this emergency method of transferring 3 men with 1 suit from the derelict Icarus I back to the moribund Icarus II. I must admit however, that the Pinbacker mystery also leaves some interesting questions for my mind; but I don’t believe such a thing feasible. It almost reminded me of David Bowman from 2001: A Space Odyssey but not quite on par with the Starchild.
The thing I find the hardest to comprehend is how witihn ~50 years, could man kind possibly develop technology that could get *that close* to the sun? I compared the Icarus’s troubles with that of Doctor Reinhardts efforts in The Black Hole, id est so freaking big a problem only sci-fi could plausibly pull it off in our lifetime. Between intense heat and the amount of gravity that must surround such a beast, I just can’t fathom mans technology alcomplishing that so soon – I would be suspicious if we could even get a bomb close enough to be of science-fictional interest let along that close. That is, without advancing the stories focal point from ~2057 into some point so far in the future, that it becomes a date on the Gregorian calendar, more reflective of the numbers seen in Dunes universe—which spans some 15,000 years and leaves our calendars in the dust. I would reckon that in even seven or eight thousand years from now, the technology of the future would be to us, a satisifcation of Clarke’s third law. But by then I would expect a Death Star or something, not the Icarus II.
In some strange way it also makes me wish I had the ability and attitude to study Astrophysics :-/. Then again if I did, I would probably find watching such films to be more on par with watching an 80’s action flick lol.