This could be a lonely topic, Away is a 1 season show, canceled for lack of interest*. It’s about the first manned mission to Mars. The international Crew dynamics are interesting. Obligatory back stories are offered. The technical malfunctions they face are serious. Is it worth watching? I say yes, with the caveat that some will not think it’s worthy.
*Update: apparently this show got good ratings from 2 articles I read online.
I Just finished it. I won’t spoil it too much, but some technical questions/observations for anyone has watched this and cares to comment or speculate.
As someone who is familiar with airline aircraft technology regarding fly by wire, it is surprising that this spaceship has one main water system and one backup system. Now it’s very possible that spaceships don’t have the luxury, but commercial aircraft tend to have a main system and 2 backups with redundant systems spread around. And if it involves a computer, there are three. Now this is obviously fiction, but wondering how a mission to Mars could be considered without at least the redundancy of 3s?
Another plot point: the idea of a main ship with the facilities to run a base arriving on Mars a few months in advance of your arrival and the uncertainty of this ship landing successfully, really? I’d think you’d want to have it there up and running before you send a crew to man it?
Plot Spoilers only if you don‘t care about watching it:
*Update: apparently this show got good ratings from 2 articles I read online.
I Just finished it. I won’t spoil it too much, but some technical questions/observations for anyone has watched this and cares to comment or speculate.
As someone who is familiar with airline aircraft technology regarding fly by wire, it is surprising that this spaceship has one main water system and one backup system. Now it’s very possible that spaceships don’t have the luxury, but commercial aircraft tend to have a main system and 2 backups with redundant systems spread around. And if it involves a computer, there are three. Now this is obviously fiction, but wondering how a mission to Mars could be considered without at least the redundancy of 3s?
Another plot point: the idea of a main ship with the facilities to run a base arriving on Mars a few months in advance of your arrival and the uncertainty of this ship landing successfully, really? I’d think you’d want to have it there up and running before you send a crew to man it?
Plot Spoilers only if you don‘t care about watching it:
- A fire (contained).
- The Chinese and Russian accuse their American Commander of incompetence, but for different reasons.
- The water system fails, the backup water system is compromised and then fails.
- The Chinese Engineer is outed.
- The Indian doctor suffers a bout of mono.
- The Russian Cosmonaut goes blind.
- The Commander suffers from dehydration.
- Personal stuff with related family members on Earth.
- Their main ship with the Mars base arriving ahead of them loses contact with Earth during the landing sequence. At first Mission Control assumes it is destroyed. But then the crew member Engineer thinks that they maybe able to detect a record of sonic boom of the main ship entering the atmosphere. They also assume that since the sonic boom can be heard, but no subsequent crash noises, that it landed safely where it should have.
- Trying to capture water from the spaceship walls (used as radiation protection), they drill a hole in the interior wall of the ship and instead of hitting water they poke a hole in the ship.
- Then they use static electricity to collect water from the exterior of the ship, from the ship, vented into space.
- They land or crash on Mars, I can’t remember. ??
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