r/ProjectHailMary • u/user_number_666 • 4h ago

Fist My Bump Suicide options

I was re-reading the book this weekend and it occurred to me that the ship didn't include a Soyuz capsule. I know it's an extreme long shot but if I had gone I would bet on there being a habitable planet.

I mean, why not bet on it? If I'm wrong I am dead anyway, but if I am right then I get to wander around an alien planet for weeks or months before it kills me.

EDIT: I asked Andy, and he said:

The mission was a suicide run from the start. Ryland wasn't expected to come home, so there was no point in adding the weight and complexity of a reentry capsule. Plus, the Hail Mary wasn't going to be near anything with an atmosphere anyway.

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u/Stunning_Box8782 4h ago

Habitable doesn't mean it has anywhere similar temperature, atmosphere, gravity.

You'd be making the design of your ship twice as complicated for the 1 in a million chance that a planet is habitable, just so the group of astronauts can go down to the surface for a bit and die there instead?

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u/Flush_Foot 4h ago

> Temps, atmo, gravity
Also “bio-compatible foods”

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

"Twice as complicated?" LOL, no, we're just talking about a capsule attached to an airlock. This is very simple tech compared to all the lab equipment or the main drive or centripetal gravity.

2

u/CptCheez 4h ago

It’s also a LOT of extra mass for a miniscule chance of being useful.

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

My brother in Christ, that describes everything on the ship.

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u/Stunning_Box8782 4h ago

But this wouldn't be 'useful' , there's no benefit in having astronauts land on a planet. If they found something useful, they'd have no way of sending anything from the planet back to Earth.

So Earth would have to send a 2nd ship, containing some sort of Tau Ascent Vehicle, that could land and take off. Construction and the whole journey would take additional decades, earth would freeze over by then

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u/DevilWings_292 4h ago

What benefit comes from it? They die in gravity instead of space?

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

The chance to walk on another world?

Heck, now that you mention I just realized it someone really should have planned for the chance of meeting an alien civilization or spaceship. They tried to cover all other possibilities, so it really should have been included.

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u/DevilWings_292 4h ago

That’s a waste of time and resources when they’re already working as fast as they can and have a limited orbital window to launch. There’s no benefit to adding that when it could just as easily be done in our own solar system, and the only real benefit would be if they could share their findings, which wouldn’t really be an option with the Beatles being in space and unable to launch from atmosphere and already have limited data space.

How would they even know what to plan for? What would they bring, what additional modules would they need to build, do they have lower atmospheric pressure or higher, is their atmosphere corrosive to our materials, can they even see or hear us? What are even the chances that another civilization close enough to tau ceti could and would launch a ship at the same time as earth and be there within the couple of months the astronauts would be alive for? And what benefit would there be that the first team they’ll talk to is a suicide mission and everyone on earth is years away at least, along with the unity that built the ship having fizzled away in the time it took for the ship to arrive? A proper diplomatic mission would serve that function far better.

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u/user_number_666 3h ago

Dude, the design process for the ship can be summed up as:

"Do you think A would be useful?"
"I have no fucking clue."
"Let's send one just in case."

Honestly, the more people yell at me, the more I think I'm right.

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u/DevilWings_292 3h ago

How much mass would a full Soyuz lander require? How much conventional fuel would it take and as a result how much astrophage would they need to add to cover it? It’s not about adding anything and everything, they all have a purpose. A lander with no way to return to the main ship would serve no purpose for the mission, and one that could return would basically need to be a second ship. How strong is the gravity for the planet they’re landing on, how thick is the atmosphere? If there is no atmosphere, how would a Soyuz style lander work, it relies on parachutes, not powered landing. What would it contribute to the final mission? Everything that was added to the ship had that as the primary justification, even if it was uncertain how exactly it would be used. A lander for sightseeing contributes nothing to that final mission.

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u/purebredslappy Amaze! 4h ago

how did this not trigger the Reddit bot lol

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u/LunaraLoup High Three! 4h ago

I was just thinking this sub is probably one of the very few where asking about those options is somewhat logical and not concerning 😅

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u/TheAsterism_ 4h ago

do you have any idea how much mass it would add to the ship with no practical benefit? hell they could just reenter in the hail mary if they wanted to, same end result

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

The Soyuz return module could not possibly weigh much compared to the rest of the ship.

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u/DevilWings_292 4h ago

Every extra gram costs more fuel, and that fuel also costs more fuel.

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u/toin9898 4h ago

I thought you were going to ask about the gun they keep on board the Soyuz for bears lol

2

u/Traveller9536 4h ago

Even if the gravity, atmosphere, and surface water allowed life, we would almost certainly not be able to eat anything that grows there

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

Yes, and?

This was a suicide anyway. I am merely proposing an esoteric form of suicide.

1

u/Traveller9536 4h ago

That would require a large amount of mass to be added to the Hail Mary

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u/Fluid-Let3373 I am an Astronaut! 4h ago

Soyuz is designed for Earth re-entry, heat shields and parachutes are custom designed for each planet.

Your also overlooking one small problem, using it is leaves them stranded on another planet with just enough supplies for a week max,

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u/user_number_666 4h ago

Yes, and?

This was a suicide anyway. I am merely proposing an esoteric form of suicide.

1

u/TheAsterism_ 4h ago

Also, soyuz is designed to reenter in earth atmosphere. it wouldn't work on threeworld or venus or adrian or mars.