The Space Race

[ejday]

Let me lead off by saying at the time of this posting, we're about +1 hour after the flawless liftoff of STS-112. First use of a external tank camera, and it was cool.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-112/html/sts112-s-001.html

Now, to the game: after a space race win, you get a nifty movie of the final launch sequence... and outside of a helicopter buzzing the tower with 10 seconds left, it was very realistic.
It starts with a view of flowers and I immediately think of the marshland surrounding the Kennedy Space Center. The rocket launches then we pan back to the flowers: and we see a dandelion release its seeds in the breeze. Now, the first couple of times I saw this, I thought in visual terms, just like they were going back to the flowers they started with for some poetic cinematography. Doi. We launched humans for Alpha Centauri (and a whole other game). When I finally got the deeper significance of the seeds blowing in the wind, I almost got choked up.
Nicely done, Firaxis.

Did everybody else "get it" on the first viewing? Was I the only one stuck in "must win" mode after I hit the launch button?

 

[gfeier]

1. Yes, I got it.
2. That helicopter was certainly destroyed at launch (actually, they would have scrubbed the launch if there was an aircraft within several miles of the pad).

 

[dojoboy]

Originally posted by ejday
..... after a space race win, you get a nifty movie of the final launch sequence... and outside of a helicopter buzzing the tower with 10 seconds left, it was very realistic.
It starts with a view of flowers and I immediately think of the marshland surrounding the Kennedy Space Center. The rocket launches then we pan back to the flowers: and we see a dandelion release its seeds in the breeze. Now, the first couple of times I saw this, I thought in visual terms, just like they were going back to the flowers they started with for some poetic cinematography. Doi. We launched humans for Alpha Centauri (and a whole other game). When I finally got the deeper significance of the seeds blowing in the wind, I almost got choked up.
Nicely done, Firaxis.

*1:30 am
*Wife & kids asleep
*One sip left of my second goblet of a very nice dry, white wine
*last s/s component built
*launch
*sitting, just sitting and watching .....

.....and people ask me, "Why?"

 

[gfeier]

Don't get me wrong - I like it too. Except for that damned helicopter!

 

[Shogoth]

i loved the video verry much from the start also.
and yes, as a biologist, i realized the deeper meaning immediately.

but i also have a technical critisizm:

a spacecraft big enough to go for ac would most probably be launched in space and not on earth because of its weight.

 

[ejday]

Originally posted by Shogoth
i loved the video verry much from the start also.
and yes, as a biologist, i realized the deeper meaning immediately.

but i also have a technical critisizm:

a spacecraft big enough to go for ac would most probably be launched in space and not on earth because of its weight.

I agree. I thought about that one, too, but what the heck: it made for a dramatic scene - with visual cues that echo and evoke what we already know. I'll give 'em a little room for artistic license.

 

[Trabpukcip]

Originally posted by Shogoth
i loved the video verry much from the start also.

Yes the start video is good if you forget that the tower of Babel was square... they just took Brueghel's painting (which is far from acturate but none the less amazing) and put it in 3d... kind of disapointement to me.

 

[Trabpukcip]

Originally posted by Shogoth
i loved the video verry much from the start also.

Ys the start video is good if you forget that the tower of Babel was square... they just took Brueghel's painting (which is far from acturate but none the less amazing) and put it in 3d... kind of disapointement to me.