So while Project Hail Mary was super secret the secrecy only could possibly last until they started assembling her in orbit next to ISS. Especially the movie! Mary which is gigantic compared to the book one. Probably roughly ISS size sans solar panels? idk
Anyway with that the jig would be up because the whole thing would be visible from the earth surface. Not super easy because it's moving fast but doable.
So knowing that they would have to inform the people in advance. and they clearly did because we can see some cameras and world flags in the room they ask Grace to go. Regular press conferences or most likely just official statements were probably quite frequent by the end.
but just informing the public about the wild and very pricey shit they are about to pull is a baaaaad idea without explaining why and how it will totally work in detail
luckily they have a professional science educator on site ;)
except sticking Grace in a very official role in front of cameras is baaaaad idea. dude is charming and good at his work but also probably would
a freak out at the official ness of the role
the PR department would not be happy
he is busy with so many other thigs
the PR department would NOT be happy
not sure if he remembers just which level of top secretness what parts of the project actually are
the PR department would be on fire
so the solution was to send documents to proffesional-proffesional science educators that are proffesional at being in front of camera
but also ask Grace to record some quick videos explaining everything, giving some ideas etc because it's easier to digest for proffesional-proffesional science educators than heavily redacted files and it's also easier to redact
so what I'm trying to say here is that there is a series of educational video sketches that Grace recorded late nights within like a week where he definiatey
used handmade sock puppets
declared he wants to be muppet fox
generalny explains everything assuming it will be a puppet show or animation makeig his own props from scraps
used Stratt's "What is Project Hail Mary" PowerPoint while badly acting her no-nonsense approach
at least 1/3 of the unedited videos is him falling asleep in front of his laptop camera
pulled so much mad-scirntist-that-havent-slept-in-48-hours rizz
Most of the videos would be released to public after launch as PR campaign. Because they had whole PR campaign on the astronauts and the backups.
And those silly videos were the only way Stratt could trick Grace into doing his own promo materials without him realizing. The same way she did with his astronaut training.
Hey op what the FUCK are these tags-
look me in the eye and tell me Grace isn't the nicest and sweetest and most helpful little sacrificial lamb to ever sacrifice
mostly by the power of Grace's own denial xD
ok sorry you summoned the babble now but seriously I've read the book after seeing the movie and while in the movie you can get a bit of the impression Grace is just some guy that got there by poor chance of bad luck of eh will do without training
but the book. oh the book has a space and subtlety of a steel pipe to the face to show in detail that had he ever volunteered he would be 1 choice from the get go. it kinda reads like a horror story in a way with the noose getting slowly tighter around his neck while he is all happy to help all these wonderful smarter people solve the proplems
like one of those characters you want to grab by the shoulders and shake like stop being even more useful and perfect for the role
and the astronaut training I meant there is the pool thing. movie!Grace is adamant he haven't even done it while book! Grace had a sudden paragraph apropos of nothing of not only doing the pool thing
that denial master was stoked he was doing the pool thing in an actual NASA pool with the 1:1 scale ISS behind him where actual real astronauts trained
(you are actually just now learning how to be actual real astronaut you dumbass!)
but that's not all. oh no. in that scene he is testing and perfecting the equipment so later he can teach Dubois and Shapiro how to use it
oh yeah master that shit and be the #1 expert in another thing. sure. +1 to actual invaluableness. sure that won't come back and bite you in the ass
so yeah. I've got feels about this scene
and also this scene goes fluently to Dubois and Shapiro failing at inviting him to threesome
and I was like uhuh. everybody is right. that man is so aroace. and I have a lot of feels about that also
