So has anyone talked about how the plants in the close-ups on the Hail Mary look like roses? Look at those spikes. The shape of the leaves.
At first when this was brought up (OP and I were talking about this and being generally unhinged), I was exceptionally annoyed, because it didn't make sense to put a rose in space. The only real experiments I've found with roses in space has been about testing aromas and they're pretty finicky to grow so it doesn't make much sense to put them on the Hail Mary long term over other, hardier plants that have more scientific value.
Until my brain remembered a very specific, famous rose in space:
[IMG ID: Art from the story 'Le Petit Prince' featuring the little prince on his asteroid, staring at his rose. There is some French text included that I do not know the translation of. /end ID]
And oh guess what else appears in this story?
A fox that the little prince befriends! In fact they have a very lovely chat about becoming friends and being 'tamed.' There's one quote in particular that comes to mind from that whole conversation, which is very long but all very lovely and useful to this topic but to save time and space I'm just going to C/P this one bit:
"“My life is very monotonous,” the fox said. “I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…”"
Which, surely the references to hair and wheat fields means nothing about a man named Ryland (cough land of rye cough) Grace. Surely the man with his rose buds on his ship and drowning in fox symbolism in his outfits should have nothing to do with a book about a little boy who searching across all the worlds for meaning and understanding and relationships, only to find that it is with the one that he has already left and that he will do anything for--even die to go back to. Surely this has no connection to Ryland Grace turning his ship around to go back to Rock even if he thought it would kill him. Surely.
There's a lot more here but its too early (late) and I'm so emotional I can't put all the connections together right this second. Like I'd need to sit down and re-read the whole book to put it all together because there's a LOT going on like there are a LOT of connections to be made here. Other people have made this connection between the two stories before, even! But now its getting pushed even further because there's ROSES of all friggin plants on this ship.
Lord and Miller WHEN I FIND YOU-
I would also like to add that there is what appears to be a pressed rose (behind glass) in his biodome house
