Space Exploration Should be DANGEROUS

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Spacedock delves into crafting a dangerous and grounded depiction of space exploration.
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[@Spacedock]

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[@hupablom8851]

Love seeing some X on Spacedock

[@s-t-f]

Do you know the short show "Earth 2"? I think, that's a good example for exploration!

[@victor6814]

By the way @spacedocks. Have you done a video about emergency solutions on SF ships ? Like escape pods from SC, life boats from 5th element, or even suits like in lockout. Or armored shelters on the center of ships like in the gurvan trilogy.

[@lasarith2]

7:00 speaking of- after season two they completely abandoned the idea of rationing the replicator allowance ( food rations ) I still not sure how there supposed to explain how they suddenly got the energy to negate that .

[@ecksearoh6283]

Are you ever going to cover the ships of For All Mankind? The Mars 94 race was very interesting.

[@cmedtheuniverseofcmed8775]

Things to keep in mind for Space Exploration in sci-fi: - Spaceships can be made to be self-sufficient. In other words, the crew can grow food, rely on different forms of power generation to last forever, replace its own parts, and recycle water. - If the spaceships don't have the ability to generate gravity, there are realistic ways to induce it, such as centripetal force and turning exploration ships into mobile space stations that can orbit a new world. - Germs, diseases, and bacteria are ever-present threats, not only to us but to the places we bring them to. Make sure you address on how that's resolved. - There's no shame in having an exploration ship or crew that can defend itself. - Exploration ships can be as big as you want. Space doesn't care. The bigger the ship, the more resources you can bring.

[@brandonquist8394]

Or number of ships for that matter. Star Trek tends to get flak for always having the _Enterprise_ be the only ship nearby and frankly, with replicators basically making any for of barter null and void, there should always be a fleet being sent out.

[@Aahmpower]

@@brandonquist8394 Not to consider the amount of ships needed to maintain the logistics of a gigantic Astro-Federation like the UFP would be numerous

[@ryuukeisscifiproductions1818]

Which is why i tend to think long distance exploration missions are best done with automated space probes rather than crewed vessels. Likewise, initial landings on foreign planets, done with drones and automated lander's rather than living crew. Other details about how to handle exploration are more tech dependent. In settings with no FTL, years long missions just to reach nearby stars are largely unavoidable. however contact with aliens is also pretty unlikely. But in a more star trek esque setting with FTL capability and who knows how many potential uncontacted alien civilizations are out there, long range missions greater than a year really should be avoided for crewed ships. In situations like that, probes are cheap, crews are not, so you absolutely want to take every possible measure to ensure crews return, and this includes making sure they dont get too far from friendly ports, again leave the really long duration charting missions to automated probes. this both makes sure that if an exploration ship is in trouble, help is not too far away, or they have a better chance of being able to limp home on their own if something forces them to abort the mission. Likewise its also a good idea to make sure that an exploration ship has a buddy ship as well, that these ships just aren't going it alone, that they always have at least one partner ship in a similar capability range. And it would be really bad if one of your exploration ships ventured out too far, got into serious trouble, then had to resort to space piracy to survive, only in the process to accidentally provoke a war with a larger power. Probes aren't going to do that. Of course even under these circumstances larger ships still make better explorers than smaller ones for pretty much the reasons you stated.

[@Project2457official]

Moreover, it’s more realistic to have self sustainability especially in more hard scifi settings. Colonies and other planets can and will trade, but for surplus and improvements to quality of life. Not growing food on an entire planet is a death sentence.

[@Croz89]

I think if we're being realistic, spacesuits are going to be worn on all manned planetary expeditions, even if they've got a breathable non-toxic atmosphere at earth like pressure. At least something that filters the air coming in and creates a protective barrier around the explorer. Any planet with life, or even the potential for life, is a serious biohazard risk to humans. God knows what an alien bacteria, virus or parasite might be able to do.

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

Like how pretty much every story set in the age of sail involves getting stranded on a deserted island at some pont, space travel would likely be the same... except you can't just build a simple raft to escape.

[@marshalclarke5417]

Thats where our industrial entrepeneur comes in, lets call him Jimbo the space engineer

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

It would depend on the size of your ship. One pulp series had often ships in the 1-2 mile range and some of them were carrying a flotilla of smaller, but fully functional spaceships themselves. To compare it to Star Trek, they would carry at least 20 Voyagers with them. However the writers have used that size to great effect. Yes, here the Hero Ship has the usual Plot Armour, though often they send out smaller ships which don't have Plot Armour. Sometimes the writers are extra cruel. They let us get used to the crew of such a smaller ship and then destroy it, killing the entire or most of the crew. I always worry when there isn't a main character on board of such a ship.

[@marshalclarke5417]

@@Dreamfox-df6bg it was a joke based on the game space engineers XD

[@paisis123]

So....Factorio in a nut shell.

[@Edge-wx7hv]

heck, you're not supposed to build a raft IRL, you're supposed to stay in place and call for help (or await search parties) probably a great deal more critical to do so in space, given Space = Huge and the search-and-rescue teams have a lot more volume to cover

[@Practitioner_of_Diogenes]

Shoutout to the use of Townsends for the bit about hardtack and pemmican, and the bit about morale assisting foods.

[@hoojiwana]

There's nothing more perfect for this topic and food than Townsends. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@simpletongeek]

I certainly didn't expect the Townsends to be featured in space exploration video! 😂

[@JDSleeper]

Hardtack? *clack clack!*

[@HailHydra27]

The poor space captains feast

[@JohnCBobcat]

@@HailHydra27 I now must wait until Townsend's publishes this video. Thanks and I hate it.

[@GoodOldGamer]

Even when you have replicators, you'd want at least a bare minimum of supplies kept on the ship for when those replicators aren't available. Redundancy saves lives.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Better having more spare replicators and the parts to build more as well enough power backups.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

Very-long-shelf-life MREs? Yum...

[@3Rayfire]

I'd like to think that the ship's arboretum isn't just for having a natural space but also to keep living back up foodstuffs in addition to hydro and aeroponics labs.

[@vic5015]

Are you an engineer? You sure sounds like one.

[@PopCultureCat]

You can replicate a back up replicator. Unless something goes wrong with the holodeck, then you f-d 😂

[@brll5733]

IIRC the Voyager writers wanted to have many episodes about collecting resources and with Voyager damaged, but the chefs didn't want that. We only get a glimpse of that in Year of Hell

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Yeah best part actually testing all the high ideals of the federation when there is no one to judge. I still never liked all the time travel stuff makes it to easy to do a reset button like with the imperium

[@compmanio36]

Why I maintain that the first season is truest to the original idea: a ship stranded far from safe space and the Federation, having to survive. Shame they abandoned that premise so early on. Then BSG picked it up and I truly enjoyed that aspect of that show; constantly having to hunt for resources and just stay alive, not just because of the Cylons, but because of your own inability to renew your stores.

[@mbos14]

Year of hell and when they where stuck in that pocket space with no resources where such good episode and showed what Voyager truly should have been.

[@MWBalls]

Its a shame they never really went that direction in voyager. I really love the first season of Stargate Atlantis because they were cut off from earth. I don't think they went quite far enough in exploring the consequences of that but it was still better then most other shows.

[@MWBalls]

Its a shame they never really went that direction in voyager. I really love the first season of Stargate Atlantis because they were cut off from earth. I don't think they went quite far enough in exploring the consequences of that but it was still better then most other shows.

[@LoneManProductions]

It always breaks my heart a little to read about what might have been for Star Trek Voyager. You can see bits and pieces of it in the earlier seasons when they were talking about rationing and Neelix's kitchen and that one line from the pilot which said they only had 36 torpedoes and no way to replicate more. But the higher ups wanted more Next Generation-type stories and so we got what we go. Episodes like Equinox and Year of Hell show glimpses of what later seasons might have been like, and that they had another shot at doing those kinds of stories with Enterprise is also a bit of a sore point for me. I'm not saying it had to be grim dark, but Deep Space Nine is still my favourite Star Trek series simply because it took the Star Trek formula and did something different with it. I just think Voyager could have done the same, and might have been better (or possibly worse) for it.

[@glytchd]

Truly :( twice missed and ib recall thinking in such detail back then role playing it online so frustrated thru couldn't even incorporate basic elements even though they had millions of dollars! Berman was always a corpo shill and classic Hollywood corrupt culture that we see so evident now. and he constantly ruined the potential with his ego. He was running his own little empire. Just look how many times we had to deal with mind-grape stories. Both him and mr. Blue-beard used the show as a vehicle to push their political agendas too. We were all complaining online back then how frustrating it was especially the lack of serialization & evolution combined with This country wouldn't be so bad if we didn't let Holly woods takeover our gaming industry as well... I wonder when ppl will realize the connection between progressives and communists & anti-man bs & cancel culture/ political-correctness the past 30years. It's in all of our

[@BluegrassGeek]

Basically, the suits wanted to sell the show in syndication, and there's no guarantee the stations picking it up would show episodes in order. So they were worried that an ongoing storyline would turn off viewers. That's why they insisted the show mostly stick to one-off stories and not build up a grand overarching plotline, which led to all the repetitive scripts and having any consequences reset at the end of the episode.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

Space should, narratively, be treated like the open sea. Terrifying, highly lethal, but irresistible to that segment of people who will never be truly happy in one place.

[@RainbowDevourer]

Well, that would depend on the setting's mode of FTL Unless there is only STL, then the analogy would be more apt.

[@addisonchow9798]

FTL or not, the original civilization, might already plan ahead with failsafes to terminate the colonists in case they declare independence and have the AI make the life support fail so that everyone on board dies. The abandoned ship could act as supplies for future more loyal colonists who have no idea such AI existed.

[@nicholaswalsh4462]

@@RainbowDevourer that is completely unrelated to what I was talking about.

[@gozillabk]

It will definitely be full of Americans, not because of tech but because of the American spirit and mythology

[@RorikH]

Also, ideally, full of whales.

[@robdead4550]

Thank you for the Shadow vessel in the final shot. The true horror of finding something out there.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Who are you but more importantly what do you want

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

\*screams in your mind\*

[@boxhead6177]

Shadows were not as scary as the Vorlon.

[@fisk0]

@@boxhead6177 in the end you certainly were right, though the first couple of seasons set the vorlons up as benevolent and the shadows as malevolent, only to later reveal they were two sides of the same coin.

[@PltOffPPrune]

Another great vid from Spacedock. I think Event Horizon does the 'search and rescue far from home' theme really well, with an added dose of horror for good measure.

[@hoojiwana]

What's really interesting about Event Horizon is that the search and rescue mission is going to a planet in our solar system but it still feels really far away. It's rare to see that! - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@PltOffPPrune]

@@hoojiwana Absolutely. I was going to refer to it as 'search and rescue in deep space' and then remembered where they actually were.

[@reaganmonkey8]

One other good example of the feeling of being stranded in space is the book, “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir. He writes hard sci fi, and that book is about being alone in space.

[@Myria83]

Or The Martian by the same author... Same theme.

[@simpletongeek]

Any recommendation for a story involving outer space version of Noah's Ark? Something like Arthur C Clarke's Rama, but updated to modern sensibilities. Also, if there's an equivalent to ocean going Ark such as in the movie 2012.

[@pastamarter6084]

​@@simpletongeek Try "Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's about a crew on a generationship trying to survive to the next planet after the original goal has turned out to be uninhabitable. That could fit your theme. Not easy reading by any stretch, but if you like challenging sci-fi try it.

[@reaganmonkey8]

@@Myria83 That one is a bit different since it is on a planet.

[@nickcher7071]

​@@simpletongeekalso "a deepness in the sky" by Vernor Vinge. Not the ark per se, but still there are people on a STL starships stranded in a remote star system and attempting to influence the local civilization throughout decades for it to develop enough industrial base to repair their vessela

[@attila535]

This is why Starsector does space exploration justice. You not only have to worry about fuel and supplies, but also have to bring a big enough fleet to scare away potential hostiles, who probably want to take away your hard earned loot.

[@EclecticFruit]

And incentivizes building a fleet that is big enough for defending itself, but absolutely no bigger than that.

[@Dogman262]

Ehh with enough salvage ships and skill you can get most of what you need off of derelicts and battles against smaller hostile fleets anyway, i've done an entire exploration cycle covering a third of the outer system maintaining my fleet that way. Sometimes you get unlucky and have to limp back to the core worlds but that adds to the fun of it

[@Kyuschi]

If you need a great example id like to reccommend the AMC miniseries "The Terror" It's a phenomenal show that fits sci-fi in all but aesthetics and hits every single beat mentioned in this video. Exploration for a purpose, bad food stores, malfunctioning experimental technology, complete isolation in an inhospitable environment, emergency survival measures and plans, everything you could ask for is executed extremely well here.

[@BlandSpagetti]

Yeah but most of that is based on real history

[@signumscaler]

Stargate Universe was cancelled too early... the potential it had was massive

[@IN-tm8mw]

Yah, it was getting very good. At first i wasn't "sold" on the main cast but over time, i fell in love with Nicholas Rush.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Not canceled fast enough ZZZ

[@OneSocaJumbie]

​@@IN-tm8mw I feel like love might be a reverse emotion i had for that guy lolol, kudos to the actor of course!

[@IN-tm8mw]

@@OneSocaJumbie ah typo, I'll correct it. Yah his character was up and down with emotions, he was on explorations and everyone else was on survival. Since i value both, i was able to admire his dedication.

[@Scandic45]

It got cancelled just when it was about to get good , if they had not had the " communication device" until season 2 or 3 and had a main enemy like the berserker after them most of the show it would have been better.

[@spikedpsycho2383]

Space is violence and darkness.... but less frightening than divorce - Bones

[@Sephiroth144]

Spock: And that, Jim, is why we never ask about Dr. McCoy's ex-wife.

[@teehasheestower]

I like to think that the dangers associated with exploration is the reason why Starfleet's ships are so robust, adjacent to a warship.

[@TheNowerianRaven]

Although its more of a background role in Stargate Atlantis, getting supplies atleast in the earlier seasons was also big obstacle. they were always on a hunt for food, zpms or nukes.

[@GoranXII]

_Star Trek_ has the interesting issue where replicators will fail 'safe', but holodecks will fail 'deadly', whereas I'm inclined to believe that the opposite is more likely to be true. It certainly wouldn't take much tampering for a replicator to produce food that is apparently fine, but is actually, at least foul-tasting, if not actually toxic. Meanwhile, I'm expect the first _actual_ failure on most holodecks would be generated shapes being wrong, in the sense of them being weird or amorphous.

[@steemlenn8797]

Yes, it is really strange that it is always this one specialized system that fails. Not like the "people" repeating themselves or get stuck in a door...

[@GoranXII]

@@steemlenn8797 And there also seems to be no way to turn the power off from outside. Like seriously, there was (I think) only one episode, in Voyager where the ability to cut power to the holodeck wouldn't have fixed the issue immediately.

[@Jebbis]

The TTRPG Traveller has some pretty good rules, tech and gameplay for exploration. There are several types of sensor suites and probes you can bring along on your ship to make things much safer depending on the level of survey you're doing. Also I love that Townsends has made an appearance on this channel.

[@VoodooMcVee]

Yes, I was a bit surprised but also happy to see Mr. Townsend in this context. It would have been even better, if there was the Max Miller clack-clack scene after the word "hardtack" 😁

[@Jebbis]

@@VoodooMcVee lol I would have loved to have seen that Max clip.

[@VoodooMcVee]

@@Jebbis I mean, it's kinda a law of nature by now 😀

[@StacheMan26]

While any exploration ship must necessarily carry a ton of supplies, it just as if not more important that it have the capability to restock itself via ISRU far from the reaches of civilization. That it have the ability to harvest raw materials, process the, and manufacture every spare part it might need, up to and including creating a duplicate of itself if necessary and sufficient time can be spared, because that's the only way you can get as close as possible to a guarantee that the ship won't break. Now, this might suggest that the ideal exploration ship is a gigantic mining mothership and mobile factory that just happens to carry as many scientific probes as it does asteroid tugs, and that is entirely correct. And if it happens to run into trouble of the shooty kind rather than garden variety equipment failure then the same facilities than produce industrial and sensor craft can also make combat drones or missiles.

[@RorikH]

That checks if money is no object, but it could be more practical to just send out a larger number of smaller, cheaper ships. Maybe step one is going over telescope data to see if a system looks promising, step 2 is sending a handful of automated ships there to do a preliminary survey, step 3 is sending the hulking exploration/colonization ships you describe if step 2 finds a potentially habitable or just extremely interesting planet.

[@toastermon2272]

That's why I love Andy Weirs Books and I'm hyped for the Project Hail Mary Movie. In his books you know that stuff is going to get wrong, everything around the protagonist is trying to kill them at one point or another and only skill, ingenuity and plot armor can make a difference of life or death.

[@dhrekkin9055]

Kudos on including clips on almost every single known space game and show I've ever seen or heard of, that in itself was cool as hell

[@Melissanoma]

and in relevant sections of the video too. Firefly for spare parts, matrix for food morale

[@annoyed707]

Zathras never get much, but at least Zathras get this...

[@ponyote]

Captain Pike from SNW definitely knows the morale value of a good meal.

[@weldonwin]

Babylon-5 Had the Earth-Force Explorer ships, which were massive, being a couple of miles long and the vast majority of it seemed to be storage for supplies and equipment, as well as to support a massively powerful jump drive.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Yeah, and didn't that end poorly for the one we saw?

[@randlebrowne2048]

A lot of that size (almost as big as Babylon 5 herself) was also due to their secondary mission as construction ships for Jumpgates. They had to carry the construction materials/parts along with them.

[@henryfleischer404]

Yeah, I've been having to deal with this for a while, as I've been putting together an interstellar mission in modded Kerbal Space Program. It's rapidly becoming clear that I'm not going to hit my preferred mass ratio, so the ship is going to rely on lots and lots of staging, better fuel, and going slower than I initially wanted to.

[@Croz89]

The problem I have with some science fiction (and even some historical dramas), is deciding to bump off a redshirt or two nearly every episode to show how dangerous the voyage is, to the point where you wonder how much of the lower ranks, without their protective plot armour, are left. Clearly that kind of attrition rate is going to be unsustainable on any kind of long term exploratory voyage and captains are going to go to great lengths to keep as many of the crew alive and healthy as possible (unless there's an absolutely dire food shortage, but then things have *really* gone tits up!)

[@MegaKnight2012]

Having learned so much about eras of exploration, yes, space travel should be dangerous, but unless one is looking to make a tragedy, it can't be too impossible for the characters to survive

[@kainepeterson6638]

The Expanse is by FAR my favorite story with actually deadly space. ONE character purposefully spaces themselves to go between two ships and it was like, a feat talked about even on Earthe

[@Freesorin837]

Definitely what I loved about Enterprise was that is was the first Trek series where the crew felt wholy out of their element and beyond their capabilities when compared to what they were facing. So much of the conflicts early on were resolved either finding a way to run away or having to talk their way out of sticky situations by necessity (as opposed to Picard talking his way out of a situation he could just blast his way out of for the sake of being a good person).

[@UrdnotChuckles]

I fondly remember long exploration trips in Elite Dangerous with my rather well equipped exploration ships. I could explore all I liked, refuel as I went, resupply on planets or in orbit, and manufacture the various supplies needed for repairs and the like. And for added fun I always made it a point to land on a planet for the night rather than just logging off wherever. Only made sense to land, shut down most systems, conserve fuel, etc. I also had a technically not needed but still important for realism first class passenger cabin for myself plus good life support. Didn't exactly need to feed yourself but still. Good times. :)

[@shintaro797]

In my setting I treat space essentially how oceans are, lawless and borderless. Anyone can become a space pilot with the right training and most often either travel alone or in groups due to work. Being a space pilot means knowing the dangers of space such as solar flares, rouge asteroids, or even pirates. But dozens of people still travel it in some capacity. Being an astronaut or space pilot in my setting is analogous to being a privateer or conquistador back in the day, you know its dangerous, but the opportunities for fortune are too great to decline.

[@RorikH]

Are they on the hunt for El Platino, the legendary asteroid made of pure Platinum?

[@shintaro797]

@@RorikH No, more like a resource that's dwindling in numbers each year that, without it, nations can't travel between stars. Rendering trade and exploration completely extinct 😂😂

[@alexboehm3919]

I was thinking you could have a 3D printer that is able to use basic materials to create food for the crew. You could also have a store of freeze dried food alongside that. Since that might be more practical and also serve as a backup in case the 3D printer breaks

[@Cydonius1701]

Now that's an interface I never expected to see - footage from Townsends in a Spacedock video 😄

[@paytonturner1421]

Yeah, bringing up realistic logistical problems and trapping through space could be an interesting plot line. Also, I wanted to talk about the subject in a high-tech way of preserving food like stasis machines that can preserve foods for long periods of time on starships.

[@WarmongerSmurfOnXbox]

In Voyager they immediately started with hydroponics. As they were short on energy. In fact it was one of the things I hated was the reasoning for it. Janeway stated they wouldn’t normally need to ration, but they were over due for maintenance at a space dock. It was a new ship! One designed for exploration. I would have preferred her saying the ship is fully equipped. But with an expected 70 year voyage, I have already begun rationing.

[@TheTrueAdept]

Funnily enough, for a _Transhuman Traveller_ setting I'm working on, exploration is a major job in of itself. Like the _Traveller_ IISS, the IEB (Imperial Exploration Beureau) has dedicated *_FLEETS_* of ships ranging from semi-'short' range 'seekers' to battleship-sized deep-exploration vessels where they do Star Trek-style Starfleet exploration cruises. Those of the IEB can opt, at the end of their career, to undertake the 'final exploration' retirement package, which is basically given a long-range 'seeker' type vessel, and as long as they keep in touch with the Mandate, they can do their own exploration. Then there are the various corporations that specialize in planetary and system exploration and surveying, which is usually made up of IEB retirees that don't take the final exploration retirement package. However, if the IEB or someone on their 'final exploration' retirement discovers a world where there are humans/a species that the Mandate has under their aegis, they have the unenviable task of blending in (which sometimes necessitates that at least one person 'swaps' into a 'morph better suited for the situation, like if the planet has a pre-FTL Feiresi on it then the 'scouts' would need to slot into Feiresi 'morphs of the required sophistication) and investigating on how to uplift and integrate said world. The IEB is one of the few exceptions to the 'rule' within the Mandate that civilians can't possess Mil-Spec weaponry because they deal with Grandfather's (i.e., the Ancient that basically caused the setting; everyone calls him 'Science Cuthulu' because of his shenanigans) leftovers. So an IEB ship can be armed with modified battledress armed with *_GASER (gamma ray lasers) AND FUSION RIFLES_* and weapons that wouldn't be that far off from an equivalent weight regular spacy warship if you account for the larger fuel tanks for the jump drive.

[@hamishsewell5990]

Would love to an exploration far from home and supply story that shows how innovative the crew had to be to keep things running, salvaging and jury rigging often ad hoc replacements etc

[@edhikurniawan]

Townsends making space foods.

[@MinerBat]

1:55 bees are anything but simple

[@1337billybob]

1:45 he says discovery right as the Discovery spore drives into an orbit.

[@MinerBat]

@@1337billybob that is certainly a discovery

[@richardpavlov442]

Born too late to explore the world. Born too early to explore the galaxy

[@Andrew-qw1kq]

It makes more sense to me that you'd be setting up observation equipment. Like satellites and automated drones or scientific stations. Like we do with irl weather stations now.

[@josiahzabel8596]

HEY! Shoutout to our boy Jon at Townsends!

[@williamterrell795]

I believe In todays world with whatever tech we have now, should we go explore deeper into space with man missions at any distance past our moon should be equipped in a way of a generation style ship configuration. Meaning a ship that could be self-sustaining long term should the worst happened despite being close to home. If an accident accrues that causes a change in original plans, danger could at least be minimized on the crew side of things. Allowing time for a rescue attempt to be permitted or self-resolving itself.

[@axelhopfinger533]

"Space is like a huuuuuge box of chocolate. You never know what you're gonna find in it." - James T. Kirk's mom, allegedly

[@themk4982]

A principle I’ve thought of is that the solar system is the fundamental unit of the galaxy. Space is like an unfathomably enormous ocean with tiny islands far apart. Travel within solar systems and atmospheres is on a microscopic scale compared to inter-solar travel and the technologies and resources used for each would be vastly different.

[@whale2870]

Makes me think of Macross, in which it isn't really about exploration most of the time, but where they send out these large colonization fleets with specialised ships for agriculture, mining and manufacturing coupled with a military escort.

[@noahdoyle6780]

"Harvesting resources isn't as easy as zapping it with a magical laser and vacuuming up the debris" No Man's Sky: "And I took that personally."

[@boxhead6177]

There is an interview by Adam Savage was interviewing Chris Hadfield the astronaut and Andy Weir the author of the Martian, after watching the movie. And Chris said the hardest things in sci-fi for him to believe is the crew dynamics. Like you are trained for all these scenarios, you have a job, a hierachy, a methodology of breaking down and solving problems... and the moment something happens, NO ONE KNOWS WTF TO DO!!! or how toxic the working relationships seem to be. (Like why are trained NASA astronauts picking on the Botanist specialist)

[@julius-stark]

I published my first space adventure novel this year and made sure to inject as much danger in space travel as I could, but because of the needs of the story the characters don't spend that much time in transit from planet to planet so I made the hero ship a proverbial bucket of bolts that could fall apart at any moment.

[@cyborghobo9717]

The Blindsight did it all with exquisite taste , that book is like a rockstar of the genre.

[@MagicFoe88]

For the first time ever, the sponsor is actually relevant to me. Got X4 recently, still addicted 😊

[@ElEscolta]

Stargate Universe and to a lesser extend Atlantis early seasons definitely had that feeling of being alone and stranded far away from home with limited resources, Universe with them having to get resources to live and Atlantis doing their best to negotiate supplies and food for their advance knowledge and occasional c4

[@MrDibara]

7:24 ; 7:41 THANK YOU! 🙏 I always *loved* the 3rd Season of Enterprise, but so many fans love to bash it just because of the Xindi! But the Enterprise was _on the edge of blowing up_ almost every episode because of their isolation, so every episode really felt tense! If they got found out by the Xindi, *they were dead!* The crew just had no means to fight with the ship on that state!

[@skyborne80]

5:07 Boy that rootbeer, it's VILE!

[@Pen_Slinger]

I never realized how many cheat codes Star Trek was playing with until you highlighted how they have food and drinks magically appear in the kitchen.

[@stunimbus1543]

4:27 Thats some serious product placement.

[@Ryarios]

My personal pet peeve is Sci-fi where the deep space explorer ships are smaller unarmed or lightly armed ships. Especially after encountering other intelligent life. Either arm up or have a proper self-destruct.

[@quarterburnt]

I loved Stargate Universe because of how dangerous it felt constantly. The ship wasn’t a safe haven because there were no Ancients to show them how to work everything. They had to figure it out with trial and error. They could visit planets but there was always a ticking clock. Aliens were actually alien and scary. If that show would have gotten two more seasons I think it could have been something really amazing.

[@jonathontoney2338]

One thing Stargate Universe got right was the danger factor in traveling to new worlds. Its something the SG franchise always did well, but universe taking place on a ship kicked it up a notch by adding in the hazards of space. Its a lot more rare in ST because they tend to have better sensors so they avoid most natural spacial hazards like pulsars.

[@RetroVikingr89]

Awesome use of a Townsends video. One of my biggest issues with long duration space travel is food and water; both necessary for life- but both require a lot of space and weight. Either; we must find a way to hypersleep- with bare necessities pumped into us. Or, make space travel fast enough that breaks the laws of physics…. Either options are long shots, and why I think we’ll only be a single system species- if we ever get off this rock without blowing ourselves to pieces. Edit: The other option is to upload our consciousness into a computer… again, a long shot.

[@demonocolips]

cant remember if it was retconned or changed. but iirc star trek replicators are not energy to matter converters but simple matter to matter assemblers. think of them more like advanced 3d printers the ship keeps a central store of different matter and then it gets accessed by the different replicators on the ship to create whatever. when something is thrown away it gets turned back into its basic elements and stored in the correct storage bank. this includes fecal matter.

[@UncleManuel]

"Scanning can be a boring and time-consuming task." That basically is the description for that game mechanic in Starfield. ....... Oh sorry, I meant "Fallout 4 in space". 😁😜

[@ericbunker6242]

Depends on technology level. Ours, dangerous. Star Trek, fairly safe.

[@DecidedlyNinja]

Unexpected external hazards in space exploration are certainly well and good for stories, but most of them wouldn't be much of an issue realistically. Space is very transparent and there's no horizon blocking vision or comms, so almost every location will be imaged by telescopes and probed by robots long before anyone goes there in person, as has been the case so far. Of course, space exploration also requires that the crew be utterly dependent on a tremendously complex machine simply to reach new places alive; that's a dangerous situation in real life and in sci-fi.

[@batzotz0z409]

Day 2 of asking mr spacedock to to make videos on macross ships and mecha . Please sir you gotta do a video on the yf 19 or the sdf1 macross. You already made a video on the space battleship yamato, we need 2 legendary anime ships on this channel

[@DrownedInExile]

I'm surprised you didn't include drones. In a more hard sci-fi setting, remote-operated drones would be doing most of the risky stuff. How about instead of energy-transporting people down to a new planet, or costly orbital shuttles, robotic avatar-shells would be launched in from space. Human pilots would operate them remotely, almost like a second skin.

[@deanverstraeten3850]

star trek enterprise is my absolute fovorite star trek show for the reasons you mentioned, it was different, but in a good way

[@kevinpappers4494]

I liked it better than the other trek series too. Except for the last season. Just rubbed me the wrong way for some reason

[@fryingscotsmanful]

Your video editor is top tier

[@BigWired]

Whenever a discussion like this comes up, I always feel like Star Trek - Voyager becomes the easiest punching bag on account of how much damage that ship sustained and yet was clean and ready to go the next episode. It leaves out the context of how UPN demanded the show be readily accessible to anyone coming into it, which was due to the show being the flagship of UPN at the time. Overall, I liked the video, but still, feels like maybe we should back off from the low hanging fruit.

[@hughfisher9820]

When "consumables" were being discussed there was no mention of Redshirts in Star Trek 🙂

[@randlebrowne2048]

Perhaps because it was usually some alien beastie doing the consuming, rather than the crew itself?

[@kendrakirai]

Trek is a safer galaxy because most folks either have similar tech levels, and generally don't want to get inyo a fight because it would be devastating to noth sides, or are so far above the average nothings a threat to them. Star Wars is broadly similar, with its absolutely ancient galaxy-spanning governments dotted with the occasional space monster. Most settings, the protagonists are either the new kids on the galactic block, or just part of the crowd, kept in check by everyone else and keeping everyone else in check. Either way, the part of the galaxy they're in is usually pretty well known.

[@bunter6]

Really thought we would have seen the EAS Cortez Explorer ship for B5 instead of the Shadow Crab on Mar. Showing how dangerous it can be out there when your tech lets you down far from help.

[@PascalDragon]

Destiny in the thumbnail and the new expansion for X4 as a sponsoring. What's not to love? 😍😍😍

[@AFNacapella]

dude, your sponsor picks are the best.

[@NccsChannel]

Shores of Hazeron was the GOAT for the space exploration genre

[@scottmcintosh4397]

We are born in the cradle of Earth, but were meant to die among the stars 🚀✨️ --Live Long & Prosper 🖖🏻👽🛸✨️ 🌌🔭

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

"Mankind can not stay in the cradle forever."

[@scottmcintosh4397]

@@TheOneWhoMightBe Bring on the warp drive. I'm ready to stretch my legs! 👽👍🏻 🌌🔭

[@martinbergen2963]

X4 is still one of the best space Sims. I love it since the first X Game more then 20 years ago. Its an incredible space game and i still check it out from time to time

[@Darlf_Sevil]

In stellaris most explore ships live betwen 10-20 yers, but it go down whem you take look at erly game where they not fly to much on our space

[@brydon5721]

SGU is really what VOY should've been like, actually making life a struggle for the characters.

[@JustTooDamnHonest]

Well the early exploration was ships going out to sea and they had t o learn literal on the fly on what to bring, what food works on long voyages and not t mention the change of the weather, isolation and madness that comes with it and not to mention that a single breach on a wooden ship would bring disaster. But shows like Star Trek showcases what the future will look like when resources is infinity, but that doesn't mean that problems can not arise even in situations as easy going within Star Trek.

[@baahcusegamer4530]

lol, I have been brainstorming my next space novel, and it is an exploration novel. Then this video showed up in my feed 😂

[@stepandanek6138]

"It's still a discovery" I see what you did there.

[@Toadaboticus]

Puts X3 down... "wait there's an X4?"

[@generalnawaki]

Star treks abundance of food that all species can eat is I think due to the fact that there is a progenitor species for most if not all the star faring races.

[@steemlenn8797]

Doesn't matter. If they look that vastly different, then their intestines are also going to be used to very different stuff, not to mention that most of of what goes on there is dependend on local bacterias. Did that progenitor race also seeded all bacterias?

[@steemlenn8797]

@@everfaithful9272 I always considered that their type of humor. Thou shalt identy yourself by the wrinkles and bumps!

[@be-noble3393]

Hardtack: “Clack Clack”

[@SlermmMcderm]

I had an idea for a ship that had most of its systems be analog computers and it is propelled partly by steam from ice harvested through comets 😂 with sentient Call ai robots as worker drones for repairs while the generation ship/exploration vehicles searches for a home.. something like a clockwork ship just spinning through time

[@Ribbons0121R121]

one thing that pisses me off about mining laser depictions is they either explode, magicallu suck it up instantly, or are just a pure laser a mining laser is something you use for extremely percise or maximum yield requirement scenarios where the beam heats up and scrapes off chunks, then sucks the resource down the beam, though that poses its own logistical issues, it makes a whole lot more sense than "eroding a hole the size of a car in a rock in 15 seconds and getting 75% of it back"

[@ionsilver557]

Oddly enough, of all the space-themed games I've ever played, the one that did the best job of making space exploration feel dangerous was a low-poly, hand-crafted game named Outer Wilds, with a solar system no larger than a small town. Here I think I'll just borrow a ranting from NerdCubed's review of Outer Wilds' performance in this aspect, he said it way better than I could ever be: There are so many games out there that feature space travel and yet none of them really gets it. The horror of an endless dark vacuum so intent on killing you that just 90 seconds in its inanimate presence is more than enough to freeze, suffocate, and explode you inside out. Space is literally the worst place in the universe. People always think of space as above us, but it's not really; you don't have to look up to see space, you have to look away from safety to see space. Then, when you're out there in the nothing, there are jewels; unprocessibly large balls of fire and light held together by our own fucking anger, rocks that can range between husks of nothing or everything some life ever knows, and an endless amount of phenomena that would take our scientific knowledge and fuck it from asshole to breakfast. But video games just don't get it. They just don't get space. Video games set in space are either just men with big swinging dicks firing at bug-eyed monsters or fucking truck driving simulators. If exploration does happen to be the focus, you'll find out that the main difference between the endless majesty that is life in this universe is the color of the fucking grass. Yeah, you're in space but it feels inaccessible like a fingerprint wouldn't take on it; like it's behind glass. The Outer Wilds - fucking hell - the Outer Wilds gets space. It doesn't care about scale or scientific accuracy, it gets the feel right. Yeah, your ship's made from wood and the majority of planets are the size of of a badly stocked Ikea, but watching all the stars in the sky go out one by one like far off fireworks and knowing that each one could be destroying an entire history and having to do that fucking every 22 minutes -- nothing. Nothing has made me feel like that before. No game, no book, no movie. It's beyond extraordinary. Its planets - fuck - its planets; each one a bizarre impossible place riddled with life and death and decay and nonsense. Each one dense in history and vandalized by time.

[@noisetheory1780]

Never thought I'd see townsends show up on spacedock 🤣🤣

[@cjadams7434]

I mean… am i the only one that would love to see Ron D Moore do a reboot of Space 1999??? Just say’in

[@xander2853]

The messiah from deep impact is the most kerbal ship in all of sci-fi.

[@analogusthegreat]

Ahh. A fellow Townsends enjoyer.

[@bluthammer1442]

one thing about space exploration they dont tell you is that a golf ball sized pebble in space will end your 4 trillian USD space ship.

[@cliffdavidson5096]

You guys ever thought of touching upon civilian space stuff like say freighters and logistics how colonies are founded settled and the ships they use and maybe passenger liners and getting people between planets. Maybe even economics of and interplanetary or interstellar nation.

[@ckl9390]

I doubt that space exploration will ever catch a similar feel to the age of sail exploration, mostly due to how society has changed since then. Societies are now highly risk adverse. There almost isn't even a concept of accepted risk and if someone comes to harm, even if they knew the risks and accepted them, there will be rules put in place against the activity that led to it preventing further exploration and experimentation. Whereas in the age of sail it was routine for whole ships of people to be lost at sea, even expected. We are not going to colonise space unless we as a broader society are willing to accept that there will be more failed attempts than successful ones for a long time and that it will cost many lives.

[@alwinpriven2400]

In the age of probes, what could be a justification for sending a crewed mission to an unexplored place?

[@MarcSGA]

Man SGU was fantastic

[@the7observer]

space exploration is brutal just looking at the distance involved: The next major star close to our system is alpha centauri which is 4367 light years from Earth or 276,173,783.63 astronomical units from Earth between our system and alpha centauri there is something called the "oort cloud" which is a region in space that there are no major stars and cannot system life and is basically around 10000AU wide Voyager 1 took 30 years to reach the edge of our solar system ((17,2 km/s or 61920 km/h (3,6 UA/year)) so speed alone is a challenge since without it it would take a ridiculous amount of time

[@TheodoreMinick]

Exploration in Elite: Dangerous is pretty dangerous. You could jump into a close binary star system and find your ship almost immediately cooking, miscalculate your landing and pull a Mars Climate Orbiter, If you're doing Exobiology, you could run out of battery in your suit and die that way, or hop out onto a planet that's several hundred degrees K more than your suit can handle, and fry, or even fall to your death. Exploration must be conducted carefully, and you should always bring extra supplies and repair capability.

[@shanepye7078]

The Expanse handled the dangers of living and working in space very well.