Posted on 06/18/2009 6:11:56 PM PDT by KevinDavis
n the new film Moon, working on the lunar surface is an unglamourous affair.
Sam Bell, played by Sam Rockwell, toils alone in a stark-white base, working as a glorified handyman for Lunar Industries, an ominously glossy corporation that extracts helium-3 from the lunar surface to fuel fusion reactors back on Earth.
In this vision of the future, helium-3 supplies the majority of the world's energy needs, a scenario that is not entirely outlandish, as some suspect the moon contains a wealth of the material (see The mine on the moon). While the cost of retrieving the material may be prohibitive, in the world of Moon, Lunar Industries has found a way to make a profit, using mostly autonomous, regolith-munching machines.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
The reviews for it are good they say it is a kind of homage to Kubricks 2001.
Will add to netflix ...
Great...that review just gave it away.
If the guy has been on the moon for several years, won’t he be unable to ever go back to Earth? The lower gravity would eventually eat away as his bones, degrade his muscles and weaken his circulatory system. How many rads will he be taking?
They lose me there. I am sick of the evil corporation plot line...
"An excellent idea my good man."
Given the energy yield, He3 would sell for something like $1,000,000 a kg. It’s very easy to picture a viable business with numbers like that - even considering the high cost of getting there and back. If only the market was there for it.
They never seem to realize that no corporation gets to have that kind of power unless it’s subsumed by the state - the very thing Zero can’t do fast enough.
As an aside, it’s annoying the way they pretend that they won’t be giving away the moviess twist, but then go ahead and do so in the last section.
Sam Rockwell’s a good actor. He played Chuck Barris in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind”, based on Barris’ book which claimed that while he was working on “The Gong Show” and “The Dating Game”, he was a hitman for the CIA. (Somehow I have a hard time believing that).
I liked him as ‘Wild Bill’ Wharton in Green Mile.
No one’s built a practical fusion reactor yet; ITER is trying to make the dueterium/trittium reaction work. If they or someone else succeeds then work can begin on the more advanced He3 variant. The fact that He3 can’t be used to make an H-bomb is actually a boon to it’s future as a fuel. If it was in fact dangerous it would only lead to concern about it falling into the wrong hands - an undesirable trait in the “fuel of the future”.
Thanks for the heads up. I won't read the review. I usually go to see sci-fi regardless so I avoid reviews. What is it with reviews and trailers now? Especially trailers. They show waaaay too much and reveal too much. Some trailers seem to last 5 minutes. I mean, if you can't pique someone's interest enough to see a movie in a minute long trailer the another 4 minutes won't do anything but reveal most of the story. Imagine if the original trailer for The Maltese Falcon featured Bogart saying to Windsor, "You'll only have to do 20 years if you're lucky".
> From the article:Rockwell excels in portraying both of these hapless characters as they struggle in an Orwellian future where a corporation has the means and the desire to manipulate mind, memory and genome. This vision of corporate corruption is the basic premise of the film...
They lose me there. I am sick of the evil corporation plot line...<
Does Rachel, the author have an e-mail address? Send her this: “ you paint corporations and capitalism as evil? How about this? You receive a check everytime you write your propaganda piece, correct? Then that is pure capitalism..an exchange of goods for services and that means, you are a corporation. Now STFU, you commie twit”
If they ever build the Space Elevator that cost would be greatly reduced.
Profits would be easily obtainable.
I'll do the same! We were talking last week about the mining of Helium 3 on the moon. It's an interesting concept.
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