When it has become so common for movies and television to hyper-sensationalize engineering, and to just plain get things wrong, here’s a breath of fresh air. There’s a Sci-Fi show out right now that wove 3D printing into the story line in a way that is correct, unforced, and a fitting complement to that fictional world.
With the amount of original content Netflix is pumping out anymore, you may have missed the fact that they’ve recently released a reboot of the classic Lost in Space series from the 1960’s. Sorry LeBlanc fans, this new take on the space traveling Robinson family pretends the 1998 movie never happened, as have most people. It follows the family from their days on Earth until they get properly lost in space as the title would indicate, and is probably most notable for the exceptional art direction and special effects work that’s closer to Interstellar than the campy effects of yesteryear.
But fear not, Dear Reader. This is not a review of the show. To that end, I’ll come right out and say that Lost in Space is overall a rather mediocre show. It’s certainly gorgeous, but the story lines and dialog are like something out of a fan film. It’s overly drawn out, and in the end doesn’t progress the overarching story nearly as much as you’d expect. The robot is pretty sick, though.
No, this article is not about the show as a whole. It’s about one very specific element of the show that was so well done I’m still thinking about it a month later: its use of 3D printing. In Lost in Space, the 3D printer aboard the Jupiter 2 is almost a character itself. Nearly every member of the main cast has some kind of interaction with it, and it’s directly involved in several major plot developments during the season’s rather brisk ten episode run.
I’ve never seen a show or movie that not only featured 3D printing as such a major theme, but that also did it so well. It’s perhaps the most realistic portrayal of 3D printing to date, but it’s also a plausible depiction of what 3D printing could look like in the relatively near future. It’s not perfect by any means, but I’d be exceptionally interested to hear if anyone can point out anything better.
The Normalization of 3D Printing
In the world of Lost in Space, 3D printing is simply a part of life. In much the same way nobody on Star Trek is surprised when a cup of hot Earl Grey materializes on the pad, the crew of the Jupiter 2 never act like the 3D printer is some exotic piece of equipment. When they need tools or replacement parts, somebody goes down below, queues up the file from the ship’s library of 3D models, and goes on about their business.
Characters simply remark that they are going to go print some parts, or else ask another character to print something for them. No one ever asks for clarification or needs an explanation on how to do it; it’s a technology so ingrained in their life that even the children in the show are familiar with it.
Which of course makes perfect sense. Even today, NASA is acknowledging how important 3D printing is for long duration spaceflight and off-world missions. Storing every conceivable tool or part the crew may need, in duplicate to be safe, is simply not an option. So if your spacecraft or station is too far out for a timely resupply mission, 3D printing may well mean the difference between life and death. It follows that a crew of explorers sent out to an uncharted planet would make extensive use of 3D printing, and Lost in Space does an excellent job of selling that idea to the viewer.
Contemporary Limitations
Despite taking place on an alien planet in 2048, the Robinson’s 3D printer seems to be afflicted by many of the same limitations as today’s machines.
For one, 3D printing is still very slow in the world of Lost in Space. While the writers are careful never to date themselves by giving a hard figure on how long it takes to print a particular tool or piece, it’s made clear that the printer is not something you sit around waiting on. You never see a character start a print and take the completed object off the bed in the same scene; in fact in some cases the story progresses considerably before we see somebody finally show up with the printed piece.
A particularly impressive detail is shown early on, when a leg brace is printed for an injured crew member. Due to the shape of the brace, a substantial amount of support material was necessary. The support is a different color than the printed piece, and sure enough, the printer is shown with dual extruders. Even the positioning and shape of the support columns properly corresponds with the overhang on the object.
These are details that such a small minority of the viewing audience would recognize and understand that frankly I was amazed to see they put so much thought into it. That said, this level of detail isn’t always adhered to. Some complex prints on the show have no support material at all, or are otherwise being printed at orientations that simply don’t make sense for what’s clearly a FDM printer.
Curiously Realistic
Ironically, the 3D printing shown in Lost in Space might actually be a bit too realistic. Here we have a family flying around the galaxy in a spaceship, and yet the 3D printer they have aboard doesn’t look much more advanced than what you could buy today. Of course the casual observer wouldn’t pick up on this, so it works as far as the show’s target audience is concerned. But for those of us who can differentiate PLA or ABS by smell alone, it’s almost jarring to see.
This is perhaps best shown when the camera zooms in and gives the viewer a glimpse at the printer’s control panel. Not only does it look very reminiscent of the TouchUI theme running on OctoPrint, but the values shown for temperature and layer height would be perfectly valid for a contemporary 3D printer. If anything, the layer height is too high: even today’s entry level printers should be able to get down to 100 micron resolution.
A Vision of Printer DRM
The 3D printer on the Jupiter 2 does have a few tricks that your Monoprice Mini lacks, but even here, what’s shown isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility in the relatively near future. Adding DRM to 3D printers has been a hot topic since the first Makerbot Cupcake made its first extrusion, and apparently it’s no different in the world of Lost in Space.
At one point, a crew member attempts to print a gun, and the system stops him saying it’s a prohibited object. This is exactly the type of functionality that lawmakers have been asking for since the viability of 3D printed firearms was proven. Those of us experienced in the technology understand that building a 3D printer that will intelligently refuse to print weapons is effectively impossible, but when has that ever stopped government regualtion?
In another scene, an object is tracked back to the machine that produced it by a serial number embossed into a single layer of the print. While never explained, we can presume that these printers have the ability to laser etch details onto the surface of the objects they produce; as the nozzle obviously can’t create details smaller than the layer height. The concept of using steganography, that is, hiding identifying marks in a CAD file to prove who originally created it, is often proposed as a way to combat intellectual property theft of 3D designs.
Celebrating a Job Well Done
Whoever the 3D printing technical adviser was on Lost in Space, they should seriously get some kind of award from the RepRap community. It’s so common for the media to get technology (and especially hacking) so laughably wrong that seeing something done so well is absolutely refreshing. This is the kind of portrayal of technology in TV and movies that we need and should be supporting.
What say you, readers of Hackaday? Its been awhile since we called attention to particularly well executed portrayals of technology in film; have things been getting better or worse? Is Lost in Space a fluke, or does it represent a shift in the modern viewer’s expectations?
I mean , the series is a soap opera with a terrible plot and unjustified drama but at least the tech is great.
At least it does explain AT LAST what the frack is a family with children doing colonizing space on their own (as depicted in the original series and the let-me-fortet-it-already movie)
‘when has that ever stopped government regualtion [sic]’ – Possibly never, I would have though.
Would have what?
I agree. I’m no expert on 3d printing but I was impressed at the level of detail they put into it.
For me this is still scifi done wrong. Take whats exists and slightly modify without thinking about how it could and needs to be fundamentally improved. Its not as bad as fantasy scifi just inventing ridiculous stuff like hoverboards, but ideally scifi should imho think through things and develop some vision based on it.
For the show though i think it was basically fine and i found the show in general enjoyable.
Guns?
As always, reality is a step ahead: photocopiers won’t copy money bills.
https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?t=355078
I can’t seem to find an article right now, but Photoshop fights you if you try to open up a scanned image of a bank note. Not just US currency, but a large variaty of different bills.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
Scanners will stop scanning, printers will stop printing after the first cm or so and yes, even photoshop won’t let you edit money. It works really well!
It works well at doing… what, exactly? Who is going around trying to print money on regular consumer printers/scanners for whatever evil purpose?
Of course not… do you know how HARD it is to get transparent toner?
Teaching a machine to reliably recognize 3d shape that reaches a very ambiguous goal (accelerating a bit of mass at lethal speed with acceptable accuracy in any possible way) is not going to work the same. Way more complex than just uploading an image of a bill for comparison software to analyze.
You could make software to recognize an existing, specific 3d file with standard transformations, but what if you rearranged the parts or modified it slightly? Then you have a bit of software that’s either going to be ridiculously easy to get around or produces an absurd amount of false positives, which tend to drive your clients to other brands without stupid, poorly thought-out DRM.
If it just recognizes structures which could be feasibly used to accelerate matter, then say goodbye to printing any sort of pipe, cylinder, bolt-hole, or whatever. That would be pretty disappointing, right?
Exactly. Not just disappointing, but in the story deadly- say when you need a critical part, or a weapon to fight flying carnivores.
It could work (and fail) like anti-virus does. Detect the most common structures in premade models, and add some heuristics. Won’t catch everything, but how many people are going to the trouble of custom-designing the gun model?
pretty much what our anti virus software on our computers do
Trying to recognition common structures like that AND guess at their purpose is perhaps one of the hardest tasks you could possibly give a computer, and maybe even a human. Think of all the historians that have agonized for decades over the significance of some artifact or other.
If anti-virus can be said to work at all (you’re going to try and find one program out of all the others that may have already run and done whatever it pleases? No, once someone can run code on your box, you burn the box.) then it works because viruses are built from instructions that themselves have defined purpose and the software needs only look for a combination of these.
Also it would work better with ai. Everytime someone tries to print a weapon the ai adds it to its database. Im nota an ai expert.
You’re right about one thing I’d like to build on: The universe of “things that are money” is quite constrained, and you can’t provide examples for all “things that are guns” in the same way.
However, I don’t think that if someone held a gun to the printer designer’s head (get the joke?) that that’s how they’d choose to build the best approximation of the impossible that they could. You definitely can’t program the printer to recognize a gun is being printed, and you definitely can’t do it if the person in question has design software. Basically all CAD software is flexible enough to design something that “doesn’t look like a gun” to itself or the printer. You’d have to massively constrain it to the point of uselessness before recognition becomes even remotely possible. (think Portal 2’s level editor, and you’re maybe a third of the way there)
So how would you stop people from printing guns? Probably the same way you’d stop everything else: Check a signature in the file. The library of parts they have on-board may come with permissions and signatures such that (for example) only the captain can print the “gun file” on the printer. This (theoretically) thwarts anybody looking to just download and print one in the same way it (theoretically) prevents someone from copying a music file without going to the effort of recomposing it. If you wanted to be truly evil you could require that the captain or even the people back home sign-off on whatever you design yourself, so you had better hope that your email works.
Now this is what I want to see: A print gets flagged as being a gun (or even better, a mundane part gets flagged as such) and the cast get into trouble because they can’t print what they need. It’s not life or death if you can’t listen to your music. It may be if your printer refuses to spend it’s last moments of life printing a part for itself because it thinks that part is the trigger of a gun.
” Here we have a family flying around the galaxy in a spaceship, and yet the 3D printer they have aboard doesn’t look much more advanced than what you could buy today.”
Let’s not forget that the original (1960s) Starship Enterprise used incandescent bulbs, and TNG version used optical fibers in spite of both being capable of faster than light travel. It takes effort to propose and integrate new tech twists into scripts and if it goes too far, things start looking very unfamiliar. Even Bladerunner and its descendants typically show a dystopian mess with things like flying cars and printed dead-tree newspapers pushed together.
We will only know how silly all these contrasts are until quite some time after the show or movie has run its course.
Reporter: “How do the Heisenberg compensators work?”
Michael Okuda: “They work just fine, thank you.”
Time magazine, 1994
Right, but those were practical technical limitations that the special effects crew tried (as so far as was possible) to hide from the audience. You never saw somebody open a panel in Star Trek to adjust the Christmas tree lights that we all knew were inside there, you just were supposed to believe it was real.
In this show though, you’re shown the limitations of their tech front and center. It would be like Captain Picard pulling a VHS out and watching a movie on a CRT television in his ready room. Yeah it was contemporary tech when the show was in production, but it doesn’t make sense for the time period the show is in.
NARRATOR: “This is not a review of the show.”
[gives review to reader]
:-)
I almost want to watch, but I’ll pass on all the feelgood-family themes.
Actually was rather impressed at how it’s not a brady-bunch-esque perfect nuclear family and how it shows them working through their disfunctions and traumas in a fairly believable way.
Maybe we should shoot the Partridge family into space?
I think the last two words you wrote are unnecessary.
B^)
Even so, they were not realistic astronauts.
I wouldn’t want infighting halfway to mars.
I can just imagine an A&E television series following the lives of a ship of wealthy colonists on their way to Mars on one of Elon Musk’s/Space X transports!
GLHF
The third crew of Skylab went on strike, six weeks into their mission on the space station. They were realistic astronauts.
I would not describe it that way- just watched the whole thing in a few days.
At least it didn’t use voice input.
“Hey Google, print a 3/8″ torque wrench.”
10mm. Those are always Lost in Space.
No kidding. They should be available in a ten-pack..
“Sorry LeBlanc fans, this new take on the space traveling Robinson family pretends the 1998 movie never happened, as have most people. ”
The spaceship and robot design were interesting, as well as the space drive. Rest? Meh.
“At one point, a crew member attempts to print a gun, and the system stops him saying it’s a prohibited object. This is exactly the type of functionality that lawmakers have been asking for since the viability of 3D printed firearms was proven. Those of us experienced in the technology understand that building a 3D printer that will intelligently refuse to print weapons is effectively impossible, but when has that ever stopped government regualtion?”
Might as well as leave the pass-code to the armory right next to the door if we’re going to be using that logic. It’s not about government, but not making it too easy for the wrong person getting a weapon.
“Might as well as leave the pass-code to the armory right next to the door if we’re going to be using that logic. It’s not about government, but not making it too easy for the wrong person getting a weapon.”
What logic are you using?
It is about the fact it is currently impossible for the machine to reliably recognize something is a weapon in the first place.
More importantly, controlling what you can print, other than making another illogical and moronic law, such as other gun control law that criminals by definition will never follow, would require locking you out of the software (closing it completely) and having someone somewhere effectively being able to control EVERYTHING you print. You might feel safe, but likely would be less safe, and now effectively need permission to print things. Then you would need to add in more laws, so it would be illegal to make a “DRM” free printer in the first place, then laws to keep you from sharing info on how to make them etc ….
Logically, it is silly to be concerned about 3D printers making weapons when CNC machine tools have been able to make real guns, knives, whatever for decades.
“What say you, readers of Hackaday? Its been awhile since we called attention to particularly well executed portrayals of technology in film; have things been getting better or worse? Is Lost in Space a fluke, or does it represent a shift in the modern viewer’s expectations?”
That, and it’s easier and cheaper to do special effects. 3D printers are still the poor-man’s replicator though that don’t stress our physics sense as much as the later does.
I thoroughly enjoyed this series. It’s not perfect, but pretty darn good.I remember watching the start of Star Wars and critiquing the technical details. Then I thought, “This is fun” and chose to just wallow in it. I have a daughter who is active in the costuming industry and design of real space suits. I’m sure she would give this show a thumbs-up. I had to groan a bit when the first use of the 3D printer had to be a weapon. It seems when people hear I have a 3D printer, the first things I’m asked are “Do you use it to make guns?” or “Do you use it to spy on your neighbors?”
The second phrase is what you hear just after you buy a drone (quadcopter) as opposed to a 3D printer.
Everyone is getting spoiled with current expectations of sci-fi quality. When I was younger I watched every sci-fi program I could and was thankful for them.
Buck Rogers, yep saw that, thank you! Godzilla? Yep, saw that, thank you! Nowadays you expect plot AND effects AND acting AND continuity all in the same picture!
Spoiled I say!
+1
This…
There’s decades of sci-fi pulp that’s got good plot and better continuity than many modern examples. We’renot spoiled, writers / editors are getting lazy.
+1.
I far prefer the episodes of ‘Blakes 7’ and the original series of ‘Dr Who’. Props were bad, and occasionally the individual stories were bad, but generally they were really good. You forgot the low-budget effects, and got immersed in the story.
I see so many shows now days (both TV and movies) that are just a weak excuse for story that was written solely to cobble together the latest special effects.
True- a good story does not need to spend endless resources on every detail.
I still like older Doctor Who episodes, where you can clearly tell the heavy object falling on someone is foam. It does not hurt the story at all.
They had to build them that way, the BBC budget was so limited, they couldn’t afford stunt actors!
B^)
War of the Worlds 1953 scared the pants off of me.
Duke Nukem Forever was released, Microsoft bought GitHub, and now the entertainment industry got something right. Repent, the end is near!
Nope, half life 3 still fails to exist. We have time.
Yes, but each half-life takes twice as long as the one before it, and that time is approaching!
B^)
“I’d be exceptionally interested to hear if anyone can point out anything better.”
The “Futurama” episode “Forty Percent Leadbelly” from 2013. Not only does it use the 3D Printer as a plausible explanation for the “monsters from the id” (“Forbidden Planet”) and “Shore Leave” (“Star Trek: TOS”) effects while making some points about duplicates vs. originals, but also I wrote it.
No one cares
I care
I don’t care that you care.
I don’t care that you don’t care that the poster above you cares.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
-Rodney King
I care, just not about this.
That’s very interesting, I’ll be sure to watch it.
There! ^someone^ who cares!
B^)
I care, I loved that episode! Of course I loved all Futurama episodes.
Honestly, it’s hard to think of a worse one.
They 3d print a gun *with* bullets. The neat trick would not have been to print out a firearm but to print out working ammunition (which they do).
I look forward to season 2 when they use a “Blockchain” to “hack the robot” or something.
There are certainly some big questions as to how the gun gets made. But recall that we never actually SEE the gun get printed, so it’s all conjecture. It might have been printed in pieces and assembled, and it’s possible that ammunition is sent along while the guns need to be printed to control who has access to them.
After all, it’s not unreasonable to assume explorers going to a new planet would need to hunt and/or protect themselves from wildlife, but you might not want to equip every family with a firearm either.
The story makes it clear they are planning to have no guns at the colony. Odd, in light of them happily making spears when they needed them to fight some flying carnivores later. So, guns bad, spears OK??? Of course the spears are useless and stupid. That is a good example of why the mindless “no guns” idea is so unwise in the context of the story. The real reason the gun is such a big issue is that there is only ONE! A gun is a tool, and on a the planet in the story the knee jerk leftist “guns are bad” mantra from an allegedly brilliant engineer is just unbelievably dumb. In the context of 3D printing, any system that kept you from making whatever tool you needed when trying to survive equipment failures, alien attacks and anything-eating wild life would be unbelievably dumb. In the story they ruthlessly select only the smartest and best trained people to survive in the long run, giving each family it own space ship, but then would not trust them to have weapons???
drlloyd11 – You wouldn’t use “Blockchain” to hack the robot. Evidently its memory is flexible (i.e. Heuristic). Just like Star Trek, Original Lost in Space franchise, etc. you can soft hack the robot with it’s own onboard heuristic speech recog. Like Capt Kirk reasoning with the M-5 computer in “The Ultimate Computer” 1968 ST-TOS. Apparently Doctor Smith (aka Jessica) was able to use her psychopath personality to soft rewire the robot to follow her.
http://www.startrek.com/legacy_media/images/200303/tos-053-the-m—multitronic-un/320×240.jpg
Even by today’s standards, that is a cool looking computer!
I enjoyed the TV series as I binged it on Netflix, but there were so many plot holes in it. Just as DrLloyd11 points out, the robot 3d prints out a common hand gun, is afraid of it, yet some how the 3D printer can replicate “cordite” for the bullets? Not likely even for the future. And why would a metallic robot be frightened of a 20th century firearm that has 3D printer material projectiles? Lead projectiles, maybe yes.
The whole plot is mired down in technical goofs. The face lights in the space helmet are ridiculous, -60 degree weather freezes the pond instantly but not their exposed faces, they use liquid propellant for the ship and yet they can reach an exoplanet so quickly, what type of food do they have to eat, how do they go to bathroom in those tight EVA suits, why is there microgravity inbound to the planet on a straight line trajectory and not orbital, how does a black hole just show up and no ill effects on their planetary system was just noted when they did, what war was the jar-head dad in back on Earth and never seemed to have a firearm even while in-country, etc etc.etc.
The season ending is remarkably baffling. How does the alien ship open a wormhole to escape and take the Jupiter spaceship with them to another galaxy. That part is just pseudo-science at its worst as well as has no plot continuity. I’ll watch it just to nit pick at the goofs.
Here’s some more (in non sequitur order of course):
o Young 18 year old doctor who is good at compound fracture mitigation and other ER medicine but yet the human brain is not really 100% adult until after 25 years old (due to lack of Corpus callosum development). Doogey Howzer is NOT an exception either. Look how he turned out.(/sarc) Well she did impulsively dive into a dangerous pond under the ship against her father’s orders not to.
o 3d Printers can NOT print a complete multi-component object complete with springs and levers. It can do it in pieces and you have to assemble it.
o How does an A.I. based robot get a “split-personality”? Like a human with Dissociative identity disorder.
o Why wouldn’t the Jupiter 2 have a larger compliment of passengers? What a waste of space.
o Why is the Captain a benighted military jar-head with no science background like his genius wife. She should have been the captain.
o How is magnesium on top of a distant mountain? I always thought it was found underwater.
o How do you warn your son of possible snow crevasses, yet he just is barely using his hiking pole for anything close to crevasse detection?
o How is a <25 year old child savant "wise" and not just a quirky "genius". The two words are not synonymous.
o Does anyone know why the alien robot from another galaxy attacked the Resolute killing 26 passengers? Seemed totally illogical.
o Why did the robot have selective muteism? (but I did like his facial disply – would like to replicate that somehow).
Can anyone add more here?
Why the robot attacked the Resolute was explained. The drive system was stolen from the aliens, and they most likely didn’t like that at all.
daid303 – Yes now I remember. That was the thing under the chariot. It was like the Transformer’s movie AllSpark.They really wanted that thing. I think it allowed them to open a Wormhole or something. Wow Sc-Fi writers can be so derivative. What advanced civilization kills over a accidentally taking a precious artifact? I mean how about “Yes you humans? I think you may have taken my StarDrive by accident. Do you mind returning it to me please? I’ll wait right here. [deep humming menacing sound from the robot like a Cylon from BSG]”
The whole story of the drive is not filled in. There is discussion that the whole crisis on earth may be because of an alien space craft, not a rock hitting earth, but how? Is it a crash, or was it shot down? The drive is kept secret even from Robinson who is a primary engineer on the project- not sure how that would work! but the drive origin is left asw somewhat mysterious.
You mistakenly assume that advanced civilizations are of necessity non-violent.
thinkaboutit – Only in the minds of Hollywood sci-fi writers. Many started this “aliens are violent” during the Cold War period and were just making a metaphor for USSR (former Soviet Union). In reality, our ostensible extraterrestrial neighbors probably don’t even understand the concept of evilness nor violence (its an alien concept). Look at our parallel development. We started off with misanthropic overtones in our early years and have gotten progressively worse ever since (i.e. atomic weapons?).
I like to envision our neighbors like the simple agrarian Pandorans (or Navi’) of the movie Avatar. The only violence they knew was killing an animal to eat. But just like the Native Americans they always gave credit to their deity for the food. They only learned high-tech violence from the American (alien) visitors from Earth.Reminds me of Cristoforo Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) in 1492 AD. Look what violence and death he brought to the “New World”. He really was an alien attacking another world and all for valued resources.
So I don’t expect our 1st contact to be violent. I like that movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). They arrived in piece and look how we greeted them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns
I meant PEACE not piece… (sheesh)
You did not notice his wife was in charge, and had more influence over-all with the other colonists? Pretty dumb to keep your one military person unarmed on that planet though! In all, his wife’s brilliance with science and engineering did not carry over to some of her dumb decisions. This one I would add- She is on a planet with no backup if something goes wrong, and she hauls off by herself to fly off on a weather balloon, with no one on the ground monitoring or on hand to help????? The weather balloon thing was goofy with their tech, why not 3d print and unmanned drone to ride on the balloon and take pictures?. Also, the idea she would keep info on the black hole secret, rather than have everyone work on the problem of getting back into space??? I though it was still a good show, despite the anti-gun nonsense.
someone – Yes Someone I agree with your assessment. Molly Parker is also easy on the eyes and a Canadian hippie too. The weather balloon was a real conundrum to me too. I mean during Earth preloading inventory and stocks… “Honey did you load the weather balloon assembly? The what??? What would we do with that in outer space dear? Oh honey I’m just thinking ahead… kitchen sink and all right? Ummmm… can I bring a frigging gun?”
ha ha!
Yeah, I am anti guns being available to citizens as in the US but that horse bolted when the consitution was written and their presence created their own necessity.
Lost in Space supposes a time when the gun lunacy has been reversed…
however…
I would say they are absolutely necessary in an alien environment.
Remember that they were familiar with their destination and the idea guns not needed,
Still, I found it illogical they weren’t available considering
They shuda had weapons, to combat the Space-Bats, Space Dinos and runamuck June/Smiths
Zakkaari Rokkanno – However, a projectile weapon is pointless against most targets that have reinforcement or a thick water/fat barrier. Shooting a space-dino would be like shooting BB’s at an Elephant. I assume that space-bats would be also reinforced with body fat, etc. And they would all converge on the shooter. Other aliens may have special shielding to stop micro-meteorites in space so a gun would be pointless against them and may just piss them off.
Unless you smuggled a large caliber weapon like a Colt .45 1914 like how many NASA astronauts allegedly did in the 1960’s and still do today, then just forget about guns in space. Like what Capt Ramius said on the Red October: “Ryan, some things in here don’t react well to bullets.”
“o How does an A.I. based robot get a “split-personality”? Like a human with Dissociative identity disorder.”
It used an old Microsoft operating system, where things that were “deleted” only had the pointer to the leading block deleted, and the rest of the file remained intact as long as it wasn’t overwritten.
B^)
Or, maybe it was like the robot “AMEE” (sp?) from Red Planet, it had two basic programs, one for warfare and the other for peaceful reconnaissance. And when it was damaged, it rebooted into warfare programming.
Ren – Like the guys who love dual-boot operating systems like Linux and Windows. But which one is peaceful and which one is war-like? :-)
Ren – my late mother used to do that. I finally convinced her to use the Microsoft Windows Uninstall feature.
Ren-
https://youtu.be/jjIj-2ww53o
Spoiler warning! Hmmm.. you must have missed the fact that part of the alien ship (the drive? )was carried along with them- I am not sure if it snuck along on its own initiative, was brought by the robot on its initiative, or if “Doctor Smith” had the robot bring it. That was the source of gravity after they left the planet.
someone – Yes I think I dozed off a bit. But I do remember Molly asking about anomalous gravity. So I guess the “drive” emits Gravitons? That coupled with Tachiyons might open a adhoc star-gate to the Tau Sagittari; System. Dr. Jerry Ehman would be proud. :-)
What do you mean by “frightened”? When the woman pointed the gun at the robot, it took it to be a threat (as much to itself and the humans in the room it was trying to protect) and responded accordingly. I wouldn’t consider that “frightened”, it’s just responding to the situation.
The ED-209 in “Robocop” wasn’t frightened of the guy with the gun, but it still blew him away. It’s a programmed response to a threat.
Hi Dan! I was referring to how the robot reacted to the girl aiming the gun directly at him (she did so out of revenge for her husband’s killing by the robot). He seemed to quiver and throw up its hands in self-defense. He did not say “Danger Will Robertson” nor “Danger Dr. Smith” as it had done previously. It totally seemed to be a self-preservation reaction to a projectile weapon. That seemed like “fright” to me. Makes one wonder if his exoskeleton was dense metal or something more organic. I still don’t know why the aliens designed two units like this to come through the star gate to our side of the galaxy.
The ED-209 robot produced fright in me and I was just a movie viewer. That thing looked so scary to me with two-machine-guns strapped to its arms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9l9wxGFl4k
IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5232792/fullcredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_1) has this entry in the “Series Special Effects by” section:
Lino Stavole … Digital manufacturing coordinator (10 episodes, 2018)
That sounds like a “3D Printer Technician! to me!
Edit for typo: “3D Printer Technician”
I studied your correction several times before I saw what you corrected!
If they could have the 3D printer running in free-fall instead of 1G, that would solve a lot of those pesky support and sag issues!
If in 30 years from now we’re still dependent on support-laden FDM printing at 300-microns per layer, there was clearly some kind of bizarre catastrophe in 2019 that caused all engineers developing 3D printers to suddenly dropped dead.
Their houses probably all burned down with tragic loss of life.
I bet it was a patent troll.
This theory fixes *almost* every asyncronous tech development in fiction.
In a controlled access system, with only pre-made models available, it would be easy to require authorization to print the gun and other weapon models. They’d also have any design software requiring access authorization. Wouldn’t want someone without the proper training attempting to design a printable item for a use that if it failed could cause injury or death.
Years ago (IIRC in Analog Magazine) I read a story about a colony ship that had to make an emergency stop. They needed water, a lot of it. Orbiting the star they’d stopped at was a water world, totally covered in a very deep ocean. The problem was they had no way to get down from orbiting the planet to pick up water. The colonists had equipment to fabricate everything they’d need to get started on the planet they were going to. Their package deal included design files to make everything they’d need, except for a hose and pump capable of lifting water to orbit from the surface of a small water world.
The colonists also hadn’t paid the $$$$$$ for the software to be able to create new designs.
So they had to get creative, Apollo 13 rescue style, by hacking together various items they had the designs to make.
In Fountains of Paradise, the space travelers needed ice to rebuild the leading shield of their spacecraft.
“I’ve never seen a show or movie that not only featured 3D printing as such a major theme”
Westworld anyone?
3D printing is in their opening theme !
Possibly the printer on the Jupiter was a “old/limited tech” one for emergency and small object use by the family that lived in that particular pod? And some new high-tech printers for general use were stored as cargo on other Jupiters or on the main ship (that was destroyed)? I’ve only watched the first 3 episodes so far, but to me it seemed like the Jupiters were sort of “life-boats” or “harbour run-abouts” intended to serve as living quarters for the persons occupying it during transit and after landing. I would assume more cargo was stored aboard the main ship which would have been transferred by some of the Jupiters making multiple trips
The designer of the interface popped into /r/3dprinting Reddit a few months ago when one of his friends pointed out we were talking about the 3D printer in Lost in Space.;
https://old.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/8cv2vw/3d_printing_in_the_new_lost_in_space_show/dxjgno0/
the thing that gets me about their printers, well a few things: they can print one monolithic device containing multiple parts that move against each other with precision, and have many different materials within the print. Its basically a Star Trek magic replicator but rebranded as “printer” to try to overcome the actual problems. Now if they were making pieces for a leg brace and then assembled them later, that would be a lot more realistic-if realism was the point. It feels more like some Big Bang Theory techno buzzwordianism for the non techies to latch onto and pretend they’re on point.