by Matthew Cobb
It’s Saturday evening in the UK, so it’s time to take your mood-altering drug of choice (or none), turn the volume up loud on your speakers or headphones, and watch Wanderers, a short video on future human exploration of the Solar System, on full screen:
Wanderers is by Erik Wernquist, with the sole spoken soundtrack consisting of Carl Sagan reading extracts from Pale Blue Dot. On the Vimeo page Wernquist explains what his film is about:
Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available. Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea with the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds – and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there.
You can find more on Wernquist’s website. All I can say is that the future as portrayed here looks pretty cool. If only I were younger!
As a kid I hoped that by my age we’d be travelling to other planets, or at least living on the moon. Remember the British series ‘Space 1999’? That’s what Gerry and Sylvia Anderson thought might be reality in the future, and that’s 15 years ago.
I need to live forever so I can do this stuff – like Sheldon, I need to get my brain transferred into a robot body.
As a kid, I ASSUMED we’d be doing those things. We are a generation disappointed.
Well-produced film.
As far as turning it into reality…that sort of thing requires energy. Lots of energy…and we’re not that far away from not having enough energy to power all the farm equipment necessary to keep everybody fed. If we transition rapidly enough to a solar-based economy, we’ll have enough energy to think about this sort of thing…but not until then.
If we don’t, of course, the masses lining up at the soup kitchens will be too hungry to dream of the stars….
b&
Energy and knowledge…the power to control energy. Forget the turtles…it’s energy and knowledge all the way down, and up.
Agreed. Energy is THE problem for humanity.
Nicely done film there. Great visuals. Maybe a tad far-fetched with the BASE-jumping and wingsuited astronauts, but still exciting to imagine exploring those worlds in person. Most likely it will continue to be robotic landers and ROVs for the foreseeable future.
It’s always so inspiring to hear Carl Sagan’s poetic narration. What an absolute gem of a human being. I truly miss him.
Thank you. A beautiful gift. Thank you for sharing.
Only vaguely related, but I’ve been playing a simulation NASA game called “Kerbal Space Program”, that really helps you appreciate the difficulties in space exploration, helps you appreciate just how big the system is, how hard it is to get from one place to another, and just how unforgiving it is. But there is a lot of enjoyment in accomplishing the missions, seeing new planets and moons. This won’t be for everyone. It is on Steam and is in beta, I believe it is still free, and is fully functions.
I am usually and generally quite optimistic about what science and technology cab and will achieve.
Human space travel however, i think, is unlikely to ever really take off (no pun intended 😝). The problems to solve are humongous and the costs are insane – even if we postulate an economy driven by virtually free energy (solar or fusion).
Reblogged this on Stories Change Your Life.
Reblogged this on Rainbowman56's Blog.
Beautiful!
The scene at 2:45 shows BASE jumping off a cliff on a moon of Uranus. Because we see at least three moons closer to Uranus in the sky, this moon must be either Titania or Oberon.
Interestingly, the scene is modelled off a cliff only 26 km from my house! This is Preikestolen (Eng: Pulpit). See the photo of Preikestolen taken from a similar angle on Wikipedia. Originally named Hyvlatonnå (planer-blade), it is one of Norway’s main scenic attractions.
-Robert
Ah well, my misunderstanding.
I see on Wernquist’s website (linked in Matthew’s post) that this is Miranda. I wrongly assumed that the moons we see transiting Uranus in this scene are large moons, but these are three tiny ones: Belinda, Puck and Portia. So all is correct. No picking nits here.
Wernquist also mentions that the cliff scene is indeed “The Pulpit Rock”. I feel an urge to walk up to the Pulpit and dream of Uranus looming in the sky. However, at 1 G, BASE-jumping is out of the question on my walks.
-Robert
If you go to the link for Wernquist’s website (last sentence of the story above), there is a still Gallery with images from each scene, and captions describing in detail each of the locations.
Sorry, I see Robert mentioned this just above. (I swear, that comment wasn’t there when I first came here, although it shows two hours between them. Did I spend that much time away before posting? Got to remember to refresh and reread in the future).
Too bad Sagan’s voice is compressed to the wall. It would have greater impact with some dynamic range.