Not a Review: Passengers
Recently I watched the movie Passengers. Good enough movie, but that’s not what I want to talk about here. I want to talk about some of the technology (and uses of same) in the movie.
Fair warning: Spoilers may occur. While I will make some effort to not overly spoil anything, some will crop up. If you are the type that dislikes any spoilers, stop reading now. For that matter, stop watching movie trailers.
With that out of the way, the two technologies I want to focus on are the Autodoc and the self repair system. At the start of the movie, an event happens and the self repair system does an impressive job fixing most of it. Later on, the presence of the Autodoc is important. I felt those two tools were not used well, and unfortunately break the plot because of it.
Amazing Autodoc
Had everything gone as planned, there would have been ~5k people running around on the ship for four months. Yet there was only one hospital bed. A rather amazing Autodoc, but still just the one. There was also an implication of there being an actual doctor as well, so we don’t know how that would have fit in.
Having just the one bed does create a single point of failure. Should anything ever go wrong with it, there is no other. Probably spare parts in the cargo hold, but until they are brought up, no Autodoc.
I live in a community that Wikipedia reports a population of ~9k. In that community there is an ambulance service. While I don’t know all the details of that service, they seem to average ~1200 calls a year. Breaking that down to per day, and comparing populations, says Avalon should be averaging 1.5 Autodoc needs a day.
1.5 a day isn’t bad. At the rate we see it being used, that would probably work out to less then an hour usage each day. Yet we have two ambulances here, and there are other ambulance services just a little farther away if more are needed. Why no redundancy on a ship, alone in space, with no external help available?
I would expect, at a minimal, two Autodocs. One near the top of the central part of the ship, and another near the bottom. Separate geographically to minimize odds a disaster breaks both.
Considering the scale of the undertaking, and it’s isolation, I would think 5 Autodocs is a better approach. One in each ‘wing’ of the ship, and two in the central part. This eliminates a single point of failure, as well as minimizing travel time when needed. It also allows multiple people to be treated at once, should the need ever arise.
Self Repairing Systems
No system made by man is foolproof. History is littered with claims to the contrary, usually followed by evidence of the error in those claims. Why would space be any different?
Regardless of how good a self repair system is, at some point it needs help. So calling for that help should be built in. In this case, when the self repair system is unable to fix something, or it is taking too long to fix, it should wake up a technician. Then this technician (we’ll call him Gus) would fix whatever needed fixing. Or, if needed, wake up a few more people to help. After all, the crews job is to make sure the flight goes well.
When this technician has finished his work, he’ll want to go back to sleep. Just so happens, there is a device on the ship able to do that for him. Of course, there is just the one, so anyone else needed for help is out of luck.
Different Story?
Combined, these two changes would have broken the plot of the movie. But a similar movie could have been made instead. Imagine if you will:
Ship has an accident, damaging many parts. Self repair takes care of everything except a pod and a mission critical piece. Damage to mission critical piece starts a timer. Pod person (we’ll call him Jim), wakes up and has a frantic week or two alone. At which point, timer runs out and the computer wakes up Gus. Gus inventories the damage and fixes it, finding Jim in the process. Once repairs are done, they climb into separate Autodocs and sleep out the rest of the trip. Should another accident happen, the computer wakes Gus again (as he was already using an Autodoc). Completely destroys the movie as made, but would open the door to another movie.
Or maybe Aurora wakes up, and Jim is the technician. She doesn’t know about the Autodoc’s, has a rough few weeks alone, but then is ‘rescued’. Jim knows about the Autodoc’s, but never brings it up (for whatever reason). And things play out from there. Could even have the ‘betrayal’ scene where she finds out he always knew how to go back to sleep.
Or turn it around: Jim wakes up, but Aurora is the technician and has to ‘rescue’ him. Vary as you see fit.
Redundancy for the boring life
The important part is, when on long journeys through space, do not rely on a ‘foolproof’ system. And have redundancy for what would otherwise be a single point of failure. Would make for a boring movie, but better life. Which is fine, excitement is overrated.