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When the Hail Mary is in thrust configuration:

The gravity is 1.5 g, just enough to make moving around the ship a bit more tiring than usual

The ship is basically a giant tower! Grace has to climb VERY tall ladders to go up to the next room. Climbing those in 1.5 g sounds exhausting. I'm sure he'd build up some good endurance doing that, but anyone who lives in a townhome can tell you how annoying it is to walk down three flights of stairs and then realize you forgot your phone upstairs. I imagine he would probably not wander around the ship a ton when he has to climb ladders to do it.

Related to the ladders, if Grace is in the dormitory and wants to go watch TV in the Don't Go Crazy room, he has to climb up 3 rooms of long ladders to get there

The usable floor space is pretty limited! All the rooms were designed to be used in centrifugal gravity, so in all the rooms the centrifugal floor is now a very, very tall wall. What would be the shorter centrifugal wall is now a tiny floor in thrust config (I'll put pictures at the end to illustrate)

Basically zero lab access! At the very beginning of the movie you can see Grace look up the wall at the lab equipment. It is all at least 10 ft up, totally out of reach and bolted sideways to the wall. The only real things he can use in lab are the white board, some screens, and the chair 4ft off the floor (that says "Not for use in thrust configuration" lol). The lab just straight up is NOT meant to be used AT ALL in thrust config. That's the whole point of having the centrifuge!

the bar scene was insane to me in terms of framing. We see Grace, alone in the corner, looking at all the other people having fun together. He locks eyes with some of the astronauts, and all three of them look awkward. Stratt looks at him, but never moves towards him, never makes contact. He is always alone. He is lonely.

Rocky makes his world light up. He has energy, he uses his teacher voice, he bounces a ball off of the xenonite walls while chatting with Rocky. He climbs a tree, he surfs, he makes puppet shows “reluctantly”. Rocky means that Grace is loved. Grace feels loved. People have already pointed out that Rocky and Stratt both play the Trolley Problem with Grace, Stratt choosing the rational option, and Rocky choosing the emotional one. Here’s my imput:

Grace plays the Trolley Problem with himself. On earth he hasn’t got it in him to sacrifice himself for the entire planet, he has nothing to die for, no motivation. He chooses to sacrifice the earth, even if that choice was overturned.

Grace chooses to sacrifice himself for Rocky. He pulls the lever and puts his life on the line, for the one person he knows will do the same, the person who has already done the same. Rocky is the person he will die for, because with Rocky, he actually lived.

Then, miraculously, Grace appears. Like a Hail Mary for Rocky. Here is a friend. They learn to understand each other, their languages and the shape of each other and how they tick, together. Someone who he can watch sleep and then wake up. Someone to protect him as Rocky sleeps. Someone to learn things from, to tease and laugh and just be with. Someone who saved him from death and isolation and replaced it with life and joy. Someone who is helping him save Erid.

Rocky could never have chose the rational option, because at this point Grace, who saved him physically and emotionally, is all he has out in space. Grace is his world. He would do anything, for Grace.