Another 1 minute take on AC from a real scientist. Sorry if it poos on our parade lol

They actually did send a Robot... David ;)

I think if the Signal was less vague and it was David leaving clues to the World being Earth like and Safe then it can be excused.

But if movies was set to be Scientifically correct with Precautions then a lot of movies that revolve around Horror, or Conflict will just end up being Boring.

Imagine Gremlins if they Stuck to the Rules? And no Accidents happened?

Ha- David was there. It seems he didn't see Prometheus. At least he wasn't a butt about it though. Definitely have to make it fun.

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I think governments would plan things that way. But if funds were not an issue, you would probably find many people willing to go even on a suicide mission just to have the chance to know what's out there

Godzilla: King of the Monsters There have been giant fricking monsters in the past. And if you were to raise the levels of oxygen in the atmosphere for long enough you would get them again :-)

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Real Science has it's place, obviously.

BUT...

When it comes to Science Fiction, well, folks often see the word 'science' but forget about the 'fiction'.

That said, with my works, I try to keep some real sciencey-stuff in the mix, but not to the point of screwing over the story and such.
Science Fiction is about Stories, not Scientific Dissertations, right?
That said, today's sci-fi is often tomorrow's sci-facts. ;)

Blackwinter-witch Indeed. Look no further than this though there are other exmples.

Funny thing is scientists dismiss many things from sci fi movies but they would actually promote theories like multiverses and such that sound totally far fetched. Kip Thorne was an advisor for Interstellar and to me that movie is a complete fairy tale.

Regarding Alien Covenant...

If we tried to take the sensible way and re-write the movie as such...

Then they would try and contact the Planet before they land... then they would go down with Space Suits just in case... But then find David and have David explain the Air is clean and those Dead Engineers he had to do what he did to prevent them from killing mankind.

Then the crew may feel safe and remove their Helmets.... then we potentially could have the Spore Outbreak... but this kind of Plot would just make getting Plot Device A to B more long winded.

Another way is send out Walter, he finds David and David tells him the same and then persuades Walter to then persuade the Crew its safe to come down.

Then they fall into Davids trap....

But again this could affect how the Plot/Movie would then flow.

This kind of Stance with Prometheus however would have led to a  whole different movie, and Alien even more so lol

If they took Lamberts Advice and turned back, or if Ripley never let Kane back on,  so basically Ash did not open the door.

But with doing things more safely and with more precautions we would not have ended up with Alien.

dk

Yeppers!!
One of the toughest tricks to writing sci-fi is trying to stay ahead and remain plausible!
Compare a Classic ST communicator to a 2007 Motorola Razr, as an example.
...now take that cell phone back to the ST era...just the mention and detailing of such as it in some scifi, and folks would dismiss many of it's functions as 'nonsense'. ;)

joylitt

Totally agreed. It seems most scientists have a really screwball approach to what they consider valid and do not consider valid.

BigDave

Thought about ALIEN and closed airlock/stubborn Ripley...
Fine, door stays closed, cue lots of bitching and such as time passes, but then, well, chestburtser time, and they're trapped in the airlock with it.
So, frantic fear fest in a confined space, maybe someone gets bit or whatever, but it's an airlock, so there's vents in there to supply and remove atmo...and not much of a stretch to say the chestburster could fit into and escape via one of those...thus, somewhat different movie, but still remains largely intact. ;)

Lol that first line is what we have been saying on here...so true! And if you don't send androids you send drones and smaller robots etc. ... It won't be boring at all. There are so many ways to make it great. Did you think alien was boring? That was very very realistic. Ok not perfectly scientific but as scientific as you can get in a sci fi film. And is this that's been missing this time round...possibly it was obannon that held that side down and they just don't have anyone sorting that side of things. And you need it to achieve realism and keep you absorbed by the film and alien did just that.

And yes there are different types of sci fi films...ones that are more fantasy others like these ones come under 'hard science fiction' and are harder to do but can be way better. I believe these definitions and which you use are normally what makes a big difference to watching the films.

Anyway all this has been argued over a thousand times on here just regurgitating :) .

When it comes to Science Fiction, well, folks often see the word 'science' but forget about the 'fiction'.

This.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American celebrity "scientist" who appears a lot on television, probably to market himself and his books, I'm not sure. He's there for TV entertainment like Dr. Phil imo. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson may have some good arguments, but he will never be an ENGINEER!!  HAHA!

based on science we know now we would have never made to that planet....

One of the huge problems I have with most so-called 'popular scientists' is they are so extremely Limited in their view of advancing tech and spaceflight.

Tyson says (along with others) that blah-blah, getting to mars takes a LOOOONG time, about a year.

uh-huh.

Ever hear of VASIMR? It's a high-efficiency plasma drive and it's merely one of many advanced, powerful drive systems that can put a ship on Mars--at Mars most distant point from Earth--in 4 to 8 days.

Then there's the Multi-Mode Plasma-Ion engine that's in development.
That piece of tech eliminates the whole 'blast off' scenario associated to rockets.
Ships would be able to depart from an airport, and just fly upwards like a plane would, the engine compresses air and uses a plasma source to heat it instead of burning fuel like a conventional turbine. Once the air gets to thin to be useful, it switches to plasma drive for the thrust needed to cross the final leg into the orbital realms, which are only approximately 100 Kilometers up.
In short, it flies up to orbit like a 747 climbs to it's cruising altitude, but just keeps climbing.

Once in orbit, a belly engine is deployed, engages and supplies anywhere from .33 to .80 G as it accelerates the craft to Mars, the only point the crew experiences weightlessness is during the turnover at the half-way point to decelerate towards Mars, again with .33 to .80 G.
The ship lands conventionally like a plane, optionally as VTOL, and has none of the issues of trying to land tail-first like Musk's rockets.
Radiation shielding? NP, use Metamaterials instead of a lot of lead or beer-can-thin hulls which allows you to build a lightweight and strong spaceframe-supported hull.

MUCH safer for the crew, faster and vastly more efficient space travel allowing a true supply chain to exist and air to be sent quickly in event of emergency.

THAT is Science, real and in development.

The world that Celebrity Scientists absolutely ignore.

Blackwinter-witch

Very interesting assessment, I'm certainly no expert in this topic, but I'm very interested in how NASA would escape gravity with a massive (mars) payload without using giant rocket boosters like we still do to this day to carry heavy payloads into orbit.

It's 2017 and I personally haven't seen a huge step forwards in space travel development since the shutdown of the space shuttle programme, partly based on the usage of old but well-proven Soyuz rockets nowadays used as the standard transportation vehicle to the ISS.

The original Soyuz rocket family originated in the 60's I think, so that makes them even older than the Space Shuttles. 

What I'm coming to is that I don't think NASA currently has the necessary financial support to develop and manufacture such technologies for a grand-scale Mars expedition yet. 

As for solar radiation, I'm not sure what type of material scientists will utilize to protect against it, but prolonged exposure will not be healthy for humans.

Again I'm no expert, but I do know that gold coating as we've seen on satellites and astronaut extra visors is an effective way to deflect radiation from the sun.

In the film Sunshine, the Icurus payloads were protected by humongous gold plated shields, and the space suits in that film were also coated with gold. 

It looks beautiful too btw, not that NASA gives AF about aesthetics (understandably so) 

@Blackwinter-witch

Indeed...  that would have been the other way around it for sure, which is what i was trying to touch upon in some replies, that there are other more Logical and Sensible ways to go about things, that still allow the Dangers to get on board.

But then they would maybe not have the same affect.

Maybe once the Face Hugger comes off while they are stuck in the Airlock, they bring Kane to the Med Bay..... this would allow things to flow like they did... not if Ripley then wants a Scan for Safety Reasons..

And so having a Chest Buster go off in the Airlock or Med-bay would just not be as effective as the Breakfast Scene in Alien.

Alien dealt with things very very well.... the whole Ash opening the Door, was a great way to break Quarantine.  Then finding out about Special Order 937 showed us it was not a Stupid idea by ASH...

But a intended one as he was following Special Order 937

Potentially there could be things that would make some Question Alien Covenant,  but i think we can find some reasons for why things have to happen... to drive the Plot.

Often things like this have to happen, unless we have a 3 hour movie which things can be done on the slow burner.

Neomorph

Consider the Antonov aircraft, the really BIG one seen in the movie 2012. It is a real plane, not just a fictional vehicle in the movie, just to say as preface to further points.

Antonov Cargo Capacity: maximum takeoff weight of 640 tonnes (710 short tons).
An-225's pressurized cargo hold is 1,300 m³ (46,000 cu ft) in volume;
6.4 m (21 ft 0 in) wide,
4.4 m (14 ft) high
43.35 m (142 ft 3 in) long

So there's the massive payload handled. :D

The Hard part of getting off Earth is all related to engines and thrust.
You don't need enormous thrust, not if you have engines that can maintain a lower but constant thrust and adapt to the changing conditions as you transition from atmo to space.

Gravity is not an issue, as planes fly and gravity lessens as you climb in altitude, and some cargoplanes carry staggeringly massive payloads with NP, as shown above. Thus, you just need engines that can match the thrust of the cargoplane engines, but can operate in vacuum.

Once you have the engines, then you literally just have to fly up into space, NP.
Rockets need to do it all in one burst, get all the speed and inertia all at once due to the limits of the engines and fuels involved which are combustion-based and insanely inefficient, and it works, but has it's problems as we all know.

Radiation comes in two types:
Particle and Waveform/EM/Ionizing
Particle radiation is relatively easy to stop, using layered materials like boron and carbon types, but waveform is much tougher to stop.
The only way to really cope with Waveform radiation is Thick, Dense shielding, like Gold/Lead/Osmium...or guide it around the object being protected, which Metamaterials can do.
Metamaterials have been shown to be able to bend microwaves, IR and visible light.
X-rays and Gamma are the same as Visible light, just higher energy states. Metamaterial research and advance is happening VERY rapidly and some new experiments have shown they can bend X-ray and Gamma radiation quite effectively.

Gold LOOKS great, but it's HEAVY...and in thin layers vs High-energy Particle radiation it'll cause Secondary radiation in the form of X-rays which the crew/vessel would be subjected to.

The future isn't up to NASA or the governments anymore. Space is the province of anyone who wants to set up a company to engage in such. Yeah, it's early days yet, like air travel at the turn of the 1900's, but look how that developed over time, and it was driven not by governments, but by private enterprise. ;)

BigDave

I like that idea better...keep them in there, facehugger falls off, everything seems OK, they get let onto the ship...
Yeah, your idea works, very well...the only thing it crunches is the SP-937, but not so much if he pronounces Kane as 'fit' after an exam, then chestburster happens, Ripley questions him as seen in script and movie...so, yeah, your idea doesn't derail anything, all remains intact, and the audience gets no warnings about SO-937 until chestburster time and questions after it :D

BigDave

Biggest problem with film was summed up by Hitchcock:

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

Hence, Director's Cuts and the DVD experience at home.

Hell, no "real" colonizing/terraforming mission would ever just suddenly divert to "maybe" a better planet (despite said planet not having gone through the massive vetting that an original planned "homeworld" would go through) on a hope and a prayer that it "might" be better, either.