this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2024
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I worked on the space shuttle program, and I found Armageddon almost unwatchable. I mean, those things go up with the big solid rockets and an external tank full of hydrogen and oxygen, all of which get jettisoned during launch, then they come down as a glider. But in the movie they're landing on asteroids and taking off again, smashing into things and still flying, etc. (remember how Columbia blew up because of a crack in the leading edge of one wing?). Plus the whole premise of it being easier to teach oil drillers how to be astronauts than to teach astronauts how to be oil drillers is a joke. Every astronaut I've met has been an amazing capable person - many are test pilots with multiple advanced degrees.
I don't understand the the thinking that astronauts would be amazing drillers. Drilling is functionally a trade, the education aspect isn't the key factor, it's the experience. The movie actually does a fair job explaining why.
I would have written it so the drilling crew needed to learn to be astronauts and the astronauts needed to learn drilling and send them both up. That way, they would be each other's backups and you get another small story arc out of it.
I never said that being a driller is trivial. Do you think being an astronaut is trivial? That's a pretty intensely technical job, which is why the bar for entry is so insanely high. I would put my money on those folks leaning how to drill better than drillers leaning how to be an astronaut.
It's not trivial to be an astronaut, but most didn't need to be. Flying the ships, docking, and landing on an asteroid all require intense skills. The drilling required a similarly intense set of skills that you can't gain in a week. You can probably teach someone the bare minimum of putting on a suit and working in it.