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#1 2016-04-10 17:44:15

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,884

A Mars set TV series filming

We have talked about using reality shows andother such methods to fund mars but its come as no surprise that some one would make a Mars TV pilot wraps New Mexico filming

Chimney%20Rock%20New%20Mexico%20280.jpg

The pilot for a Mars-set TV series has finished filming on location in and around Albuquerque in New Mexico.

Made for the CW television network in the US, the as-yet-untitled production tells the story of a group of explorers who travel to Mars to join an established colony, only to find everyone has disappeared.

Space-based science fiction is popular once again following the success of films like Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity and, of course, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The rebooted Star Trek franchise has also been a hit and Star Trek Beyond is due out in July this year, while the brand is also returning to television.

New Mexico offers desert locations suitable as a stand-in for Mars and the state also offers a generous 30% TV filming incentive.

The state also recently hosted sci-fi movie The Space Between Us, about a boy who has grown up on Mars but then travels to Earth to track down the true love he meets online. Location filming took place partly at Spaceport America, which is a base for Richard Branson’s company Virgin Galactic.   

Mars was put front and centre as a setting last autumn by Ridley Scott’s The Martian, which was a huge international hit. The film’s production team built a Martian landscape at Korda Studios in Budapest, but also shot scenes in the deserts of Jordan.

I wonder why Mars Society has not done its own feed from all the research stations day to day to spin its own mars reality series....

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#2 2016-04-10 21:38:33

Tom Kalbfus
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Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

I believe a crew would take about 9 months in transit to get to Mars from Earth. I would think if the base crew were to suddenly disappear, they would likely disappear before the crew in transit got there! The Crew is not likely to land at the Mars base and suddenly find that everyone there is missing! If the base crew went missing on the outbound leg, NASA would likely tell them about it before they even got there, they might even cancel the mission all together pending an investigation on what actually happened to the Mars base crew. The Mars Base would likely have cameras relaying images of what's going on at the base, back to Earth. so if the Crew of the base disappeared, NASA would likely have some idea of what happened. I guess the most likely scenario would be a communications blackout with the entire crew away from the base. That is the crew goes over the horizon and is never seen again. The base would likely still be functioning and communicating with Earth, otherwise NASA would never permit the next crew to land there! the assumption being that life support failed, and that the base could no longer support the arriving crew.

Can you think of any other problems with this scenario?

Chimney%20Rock%20New%20Mexico%20280.jpg
Oh by the way, I have yet to see any pictures of Mars that looks like this. The color is about right, but that standing column of rock? I think there are more Mars-like landscapes on Earth they could use.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-10 21:41:45)

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#3 2016-04-11 06:49:30

Terraformer
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From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,818
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

It's quite difficult to cancel a mission if you're limited to Hohmann transfers... once they make the insertion, they're committed to it. They pretty much have to land when they arrive as well, unless you're talking about a Battlestar Galactica mission.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#4 2016-04-11 09:30:42

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

Suppose you're a group of astronauts, you're one month out from Earth, when all of the sudden the Mars Base goes dark, no contact can be established with it. Mission Control has tried raising them, but to no avail. So what do you do? What would NASA do? Land there anyway? NASA is hypercautious, no one wants to take responsibility for sending astronauts down to the surface of Mars, possibly to die!

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-11 09:31:16)

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#5 2016-04-11 09:59:07

Terraformer
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From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,818
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

What else are you going to do? If you're on a Hohmann transfer, you can't really abort - and if the Mars base is established, you're unlikely to be in a ship that's designed for people to wait around in orbit for two years and then return. When people are flown to Antarctic bases, we don't outfit the planes so that they can be lived in for years, in case something causes all the existing bases to be destroyed - if that happened, chances are anyone going there is going to die anyway, because it won't be localised...


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#6 2016-04-11 10:49:56

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

You really think NASA would design a mission where if something goes wrong with the base, everyone dies on the ship? Seems to me that if a base has already been established, we aren't talking about the first few missions to Mars. For the first few missions, you have an Earth Return Vehicle and the astronauts arrive in a hab. The hab is designed to sustain them for the duration of the mission, it doesn't really matter whether it lands on Mars or not. The Design Reference mission provides a return vehicle in orbit, so that is their trip back. If it was Mars direct, the hab would have to land, in order to use the Earth return Vehicle to return to Earth. I just know that NASA is not the United Federation of Planets, they would not send down an "Away Team" to investigate a missing crew.

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#7 2016-04-11 17:17:05

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
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Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

Disaster sells news papers, books or magazines but then again we make movies about just that thing as its entertaining.

I see an oportunity slipping away to make money for going to mars....in a reality show series from just what we are doing....

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#8 2016-04-11 21:45:00

Tom Kalbfus
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Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

lets consider for one moment putting the standard science fiction tropes on Mars. Which ones are the most likely? Which could happen but is not likely to?

Lets consider an alien artifact on Mars, what would be a realistic way to portray that? Lets stick with hard science. Lets say 2 billion years ago, an alien starship visited our Solar System. Can you think of a reason why they might want to visit Mars?
GeologialTime.gif
On second thought, here is a Mars timeline, at what period do you think Mars would be most interesting to a passing alien spaceship, such that they might land there and perhaps leave something behind?
412237ab.2.jpg
It appears the Noachian would be the most interesting to visit, in this period, Mars is wet, and has a thick atmosphere, there is weathering and erosion, weather, volcanism, and Marsquakes.

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#9 2016-04-12 16:28:54

SpaceNut
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Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

All true if we were making up a film of some story line or plot that are made up....


What I was really thinking of is A Mars Revenue Raising Activity by simply capturing the day to day activity that is done at the analog sites and creating a media feed or reality show for a simulated Mars life....

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#10 2016-04-12 16:45:56

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

antarctica-dry-valley-516357-sw.jpg
Here's a great place. A dry valley in Antarctica
182671ac33901f015f8aa3185f84144b.jpg
Here's another one.
800px-mckelvey_valley_-_antarctica.jpg
I think if we're going to do this, we should do it some place interesting, such as the dry valleys of Antartica. We should build some "space suits" that provide heat, and test them out in these dry windy subzero conditions.
How much do you think it would cost to build an Antarctic "Space Suit"? It needs to be insulating and provide a level of comfort for the wearer, such that he doesn't feel any of the Antarctic cold while wearing it. What sort of power source do you think it would need? How about propane cylinders in the backpack area, and heater to heat up the incoming airflow, naturally you don't want to mix up the propane exhaust with that. Probably a built in generator would be required to operate the electronics in the suit, as we would include a suit radio, and some undergarments including water, and a human waste collection system.

How does that sound? If were going to do it for television, we should make the experience as real and as authentic as possible. Plus there is the advantage of no polar bears in Antarctica!

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#11 2016-04-12 16:53:50

SpaceNut
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Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

Those are great sites for doing the show from and just one of the many items which we would want to be using as if we were on Mars....we can even do the experiments one would do on a mission to mars, the building of the chemical factories, the building of a colony expansion ect....
All of this could be funded by selling of the shows footage or rights plus getting the experiments to run could be another way to get funding for doing the initial ground work need to make it in a harsh environment....

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#12 2016-04-12 17:41:51

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

antarctic-clothing-shop-8010.jpg
Just for reference this is the sort of clothes Antarctic scientists wear at the bases.
8616dacd9d4b80516b386bd8bce0067a1.jpg
Here is one option for a Mars spacesuit.
So what do you think, can we build a suit that looks like this, that functions as Antarctic clothing?
I think one of the important things is covering all of your skin areas to prevent frost bite.
MDRS_2-04.jpg
Then we need to build one of these at the Antarctic site.
And we'll need some power.
We could build a "Nuclear reactor" that runs on diesel fuel, or we could opt to go for Photovoltaic cells, as we'll probably be running this thing during Antarctic summer, so there should be plenty of sunlight.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2016-04-12 17:47:46)

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#13 2016-04-12 18:53:27

SpaceNut
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#14 2016-04-12 19:09:07

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

In Utah, what you would need would be air conditioned suits. Antarctica is a more interesting Mars-like place. Utah can look like Mars, but every once in a while, you'll see a jack rabbit, or a road runner, or maybe a crow or a buzzard picking over a dead animal carcass, something you wouldn't see on Mars. the Dry valleys have very little except geology.

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#15 2016-04-12 21:01:38

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
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Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

The second image is of Devon Island in the artic but its still has the wildlife unlike the Antartica location....
So what are the rules for setting up such a research location in Antartica just as we are discusing for further developement of a mars simulation and testing location....

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#16 2016-04-13 06:33:07

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: A Mars set TV series filming

Antarctica has a few things in common with Mars, besides being cold, it is governed by the Antarctic Treaty, thus it belongs to no nation much as Mars is covered by the Space treaty. I think one of the rules is simple, "You bring it in, you take it out!" The hab, and all the other equipment brought in, would need to be disassembled and taken out, once we're done with it, though not everyone follows this rule, if were going to televise this, we should be good upstanding citizens, and not leave garbage and junk when were done. Antarctica is a sort of an international park, although there are no park rangers! A person doesn't need a passport to go there, you simply arrive. It would be nice to have good relations with your nearest neighbors in Antarctica, basically those research scientists that are studying the place.
Ant1.jpg?fromGateway=true
This map shows that the dry valleys are near McMurdo Base, it is the largest scientific research base on the continent, and it is inhabited all year round, plus the fact that it is on the coast means it is easy to get to.
2830502483c49f008971f61aed4ea796.jpg

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#17 2016-04-13 17:46:44

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

Some links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station

NSF - National Science Foundation

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OFFICE OF POLAR PROGRAMS U.S. ANTARCTIC PROGRAM for YOUR STAY AT McMURDO STATION ANTARCTICA

Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists

Welcome to the United States Antarctic Program Portal


A mars sceene that we might try to work on...

Mars_mission.jpg

One of the things that a mission simulation here at the dry valley could be to test what we would need to do for a short stay mission of 30 to 90 days. Where we test a pretend MAV ISPP lander sure we will need to modify how we get the Co2 but we can go through the motion of a test under simular conditions of temperature. Another thing to test is the size of what the crew lands in from single grouped landings to a medium lander that would use an inflateble habitat and then try missions with simulated large landed habitat....do the pretend of what we would bring to the surface and nothing more to prove out what it takes....Other possible archetectures can be the long stay and roving mission designs being tested to scale and durations....

To go even farther in these simulations would be to use say the suborbit rocket as a landing simulator for honing in the pin point landing skills and for trying other mission types....

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#18 2016-04-13 18:03:22

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

http://usap.gov/news/documents/McMurdoM … an_2.1.pdf

Something else to experiment with is greenhouse food growth. The station has been doing hydroponic food growth so maybe we can learn a few tricks about minimizing the mass that we would take to a mars mission and learn how to make it possible by putting that into the simulation...

South Pole Food Growth Chamber

Green Antarctica: Station greenhouses produce fresh food, feel-good environment

The McMurdo greenhouse generates up to 140 kg of food each month. From lettuce for salads to mint for Cuban cocktails. The artificial lights provide different spectrums of light for 16-17 hours a day.

HYDROPONICS AT MC MURDO STATION ANTARCTICA

The 649 square foot greenhouse at McMurdo can generate a monthly average 250 lbs of produce during peak cycles. Varieties include lettuce greens, spinach, arugula, chard, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and herbs. The harvest is ample enough to provide a winter community of up to 230 people a salad once every 4 days, plus lots of fresh herbs, veggies, and fruit for the galley chefs to incorporate into their menus.

One we start some of these mission senarios we can also experiment with poultry and fish.....

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#19 2016-04-14 01:30:16

Tom Kalbfus
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Registered: 2006-08-16
Posts: 4,401

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

SpaceNut wrote:

Some links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Station

NSF - National Science Foundation

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION OFFICE OF POLAR PROGRAMS U.S. ANTARCTIC PROGRAM for YOUR STAY AT McMURDO STATION ANTARCTICA

Ice Stories: Dispatches from Polar Scientists

Welcome to the United States Antarctic Program Portal


A mars sceene that we might try to work on...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … ission.jpg

One of the things that a mission simulation here at the dry valley could be to test what we would need to do for a short stay mission of 30 to 90 days. Where we test a pretend MAV ISPP lander sure we will need to modify how we get the Co2 but we can go through the motion of a test under simular conditions of temperature. Another thing to test is the size of what the crew lands in from single grouped landings to a medium lander that would use an inflateble habitat and then try missions with simulated large landed habitat....do the pretend of what we would bring to the surface and nothing more to prove out what it takes....Other possible archetectures can be the long stay and roving mission designs being tested to scale and durations....

To go even farther in these simulations would be to use say the suborbit rocket as a landing simulator for honing in the pin point landing skills and for trying other mission types....

Remember the SpaceX bottom stage landing. I wonder, could a Falcon Rocket launch a Mars hab on a suborbital trajectory for a landing in Antarctica? Lets say we launched it from Australia for example, the bottom stage lifts a Hab in an arc towards one of the dry valleys, and then using some of the same software and controls to land a Falcon Stage, we land a working Mars Hab on the site. Of course on Earth, you need more powerful rockets to make a sort landing, but SpaceX has demonstrated this. The astronauts don't have to fly in the Hab, the Hab can land itself unoccupied, and then the astronauts move in after a successful landing, and if its not successful, then we got damaged equipment but no lives lost. It would test the landing gear on the thing. Maybe we could get some help from SpaceX to do this. We also might want to consider a landing at high altitude, say for instance on an exposed surface of the Transantarctic Mountains, and then pressurize the hab at sea level pressures to test the seals.

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#20 2016-04-14 16:48:18

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,884

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

The Space X grass Hopper  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_(rocket)
Sort of but not quite...

Spx_Grasshopper_03.jpg

I am thinking of more like a modified falcon 9 or the New Sheppard sub orbital unit.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-orbital_spaceflight .. but yes a launch to landing profile for what we would use on a simulated mars mission...we would need to taylor the rocket and profile to the mass of what we are planning on landing....

trajectory_white.jpg

Yup I agree there is a lot of things that we could do and could be done to simulate the parts of a mission from launch to landing and even a return sort of....
This would be a great dry run of what it would take....

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#21 2022-04-11 14:43:12

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

I could not find a tv entertainment thread other than https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1243 'Christmas TV - what are YOU looking forward to?'
I'm kinda gone off Ronald D. Moore after his Portlandia, Roswell stuff and a poor final season of Battlestar and I guess I'm hesitant to jump onto a show with other low bar American science fiction drama or poor worldwide indie scifi that just hits the wrong notes and looks like a bad b-movie.

However his latest show 'For All Mankind' seems to be a big production, the latest season seems to be on Mars.

'For All Mankind' aims for Mars as season 3 lands June 10 on Apple TV+
https://www.space.com/for-all-mankind-s … er-appletv

SpaceX Sending Tom Cruise To The Space Station In 2021
https://hackaday.com/2020/09/22/spacex- … n-in-2021/

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-04-11 14:44:22)

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#22 2022-09-15 17:50:54

Mars_B4_Moon
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Registered: 2006-03-23
Posts: 9,267

Re: A Mars set TV series filming

So I see Ron Howard is working on a movie or show called Mars 2080, he already did a Mars tv show with documentary and fictional elements, the Director Eliza McNitt has already worked on strange visual effect movie called 'Spheres' a mix of Documentary and Scifi looking at the trailer I'm not sure if its a Documentary movie or Philosophical Experimental Art?
The Ron Howard series was filmed in Budapest and Morocco, it featured a multi national mission from Spain, Russia, Nigeria, and the United States of America, the show featured SpaceX Starship which was in development by SpaceX and the Space Launch System (SLS)
https://web.archive.org/web/20200107130 … hows/mars/

'NASA Webb Space Telescope Data Could Be Misinterpreted, Scientists Warn'
https://www.cnet.com/science/space/nasa … ists-warn/

The biggest movie these past years was 'The Martian' directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon adapted the screenplay from the 2011 novel The Martian by Andy Weir.

A new and current show 'For All Mankind' also features Mars.

Ben Nedivi & Matt Wolpert Interview: For All Mankind Season 3
https://screenrant.com/for-all-mankind- … interview/

Ron Moore a Star Trek and Battlestar writer has a show on Mars. Ron Moore has some left values but pro-Nuclear, he also wrote Outlander the TV series he describes himself as a 'recovering Catholic' and is agnostic studied government political science at Cornell, originally on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left during his senior year after losing interest in his studies. He made a show  Helix is an American science fiction horror drama television series it followed a fictional team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who traveled to a research facility in the Arctic to investigate a potential outbreak of disease, he got his early big break when toured Star Trek sets during the filming of the episode "Time Squared." While there, Ron Moore passed a script he had written to one of Gene Roddenberry's assistants, who helped him get an agent who submitted the script through proper channels.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110708031 … moore.html
Battlestar Galactica an American science fiction media franchise originally created by Glen A. Larson.
Observations on the correlation between Battlestar Galactica and the LDS Church.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080724144 … N_BSG.html
Note: Glen A. Larson was a member of the Mormon Church and certainly was more than aware that he was creating a parallel between the show and the church.
A modernized remake was developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in 2003, Ron Moore also wrote the movie Star Trek Generations and Star Trek First Contact with Time Travel and the Borg.

A scifi tv series 'The Expanse' also features Mars. A documentary 'Passage to Mars' 2016 with Buzz Alrdin it features actors Zachary Quinto,  Charlotte Rampling,and Pascal Lee a planetary scientist with the Mars Institute and the SETI Institute. 'Moonshot' 2022 in the science-fiction romantic comedy, two college students sneak onto a space shuttle to a terraformed Mars.

Settlers is a 2021 British science fiction thriller film set on Mars, from the trailer it seems to be semi Terraformed inside giant Domes and is more of a Thriller or Frontier Wild West or scifi psychological horror survivor with elements from 'Tombstone', 'Outland', 'Deliverance',   'Dead Calm',  'Once Upon A Time In The West', 'The Grey', 'High Noon' 'Predator' Kon-Tiki  South America to the Polynesian islands or maybe Man in the Wilderness or  Lord of the Flies El Topo 1971 or the original Django 1966 or some frontier survival story.

There is also a teenage romantic scifi 'The Space Between Us'  a teenage boy, born on Mars, who travels to Earth, the movie flopped at the box office. Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars is a 2017 Japanese-American adult computer animated military science fiction based upon the movie franchise and the Robert A. Heinlein original novels.

Why ‘For All Mankind’ creator Ron Moore dreamed up a clean, nuclear future
https://www.latimes.com/environment/new … ling-point

"Apple TV+ series For All Mankind, Calls win 2021 Emmy Awards"
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/08 … mmy-awards

What to Expect from NASA’s DART Mission to Deflect an Asteroid
https://gizmodo.com/nasa-dart-asteroid- … 1849539827

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2022-09-16 03:52:25)

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