#science shit

me personally I was in the very small, contrarian minority in that I didn’t like interstellar at all. despite being hailed for its scientific accuracy I felt it was too self-important and failed to capture the mundanity and humanity that comes with science/the scientific process. project hail mary, in my opinion, was way better at balancing science with the characters and giving a reason to care for the work they were doing. it also doesn’t have a final message of “just find another planet lul” in response to climate change. which is a plus. but i’m not an actual scientist (yet) so not really qualified to soapbox about this matter

as a scientist who works closely with the actual systems that make space science possible irl I figured you might have opinions about how it’s portrayed in Interstellar. it’s always nice to hear smart people’s opinions about things!

i have watched interstellar but that was 1) in 2015 and 2) split right at "don't leave me murph!" bc i watched it on an international flight and couldn't finish the movie until the return flight lol

(to this day i still absently mumble 'don't leave me murph' if i'm idling, but that scene did make me cry even tho it sounds like i'm mocking it)

(15 hr flight to hong kong for a grad school interview, i was sobbing and then they cut the movie during descent and i had to put my makeup and fake lashes over all of That. and then haunted by the self-induced cliffhanger...)

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the two stories have different focuses. as i have said how much i love phm for its "human" portrayal, i think it's a story that uses science and space as the (very fleshed out, chef's kiss) setting, versus interstellar uses science as the plot device and mechanism for cooper's personal journey. nuanced difference.

you can tell a story about growing into bravery and one-of-a-kind friendship like phm without the setting of space. interstellar doesn't work without the theoretical physics. i don't think it's fair to compare the two on that merit besides your personal preference.

also, shit's SO fucked in interstellar, it's like if they were too deep to fix earth. they don't have the manpower or infrastructure, they have a long shot hope at their species surviving, not the current generation.

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onto my actual expertise: i can't judge the science. i'm not a theoretical physicist/astrophysicist etc. i do not know much about black holes beyond general knowledge from undergrad courses. and when i watched it, i had more immediate familiarity with aircraft design vs spacecraft and space systems.

i also am not about to rewatch that movie just to answer this ask lol

overall science is rigorous enough. that's the black hole stuff, the fundamental laws, the theory. people talk ad nauseam about that, it's fine

using my current knowledge on space systems for what i remember: so. as a single shot mission it makes sense. they built it in space bc you cannot launch that shit. i was about to rip into the docking scene until i remembered the two elements were damaged so he had to manually do it (rendezvous and docking was The Premiere capability that put the US ahead during the cold war space race, so that had better be automated and top notch).

i'd worry about weird structural loads on the endurance ring design while it's in deep space, but it has to go into a black hole so whatever! who knows what happens in a black hole and that's the whole point of the movie.

but...it's spinning AND thrusting at the same time, so a deep cut would be figuring out weird interactions w natural frequency vs the engines that could cause it to vibrate into smithereens. but x2, circles are strong and it'd be in tension and not compression so idk. that's like a very deep cut, and i'm neither a structural optimization nor electric propulsion expert. that middle core/hub is begging to be torn off...

some of my recent studies had to look into crew habitation, and i'm wincing at all the piping and wiring that'll be needed because all of these systems are so dispersed over the entire vehicle. but also, they assembled it in space so it can be as heavy as whatever. BUT ALSO UPKEEP OF THE WATER RECYCLING SYSTEM. if it's all in one place, you can "easily" replace parts. lol good luck if you clog up somewhere halfway across the ring. go hunt for and clean your pee brine.

AH

THAT SHIT IN LOW EARTH ORBIT so you gotta deal with stationkeeping this...behemoth. its orbit will degrade and need constant maneuvering to stay at altitude. it'd be propellant-hungry as hell, but it doesn't say what type of propellant so idk probably something storable (doesn't need extreme temperature and pressure to manage) vs what we're dealing with now (liquid hydrogen and oxygen -> liquid methane and oxygen for HLS concepts because less toxic and more propulsively efficient, but needs cryogenic fluid management tech and liquid hydrogen very leaky). and lol "a decade to complete" we don't even have half of this for the ISS and that was "completed" in 2011, which launched in 1998.

the ranger single-stage-to-orbit element design is pretty out there, too, but it has explanations for what novel technologies it uses to have that kind of design. pass ig.

Ft. used glassware

and a “UK [University of Kentucky] Science Thing”.

Microscope on a other table. ETA: Peeps in the tags are saying it’s a lensometer. 🙂