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I love the details in this film. Things like the winged people flying on Titan, possible due to its dense atmosphere. There are things on these other worlds that we could never experience here.
Even the title has multiple meanings to it:
In ancient times, astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Ancient Greeks called these lights πλάνητες ἀστέρες (planetes asteres, "wandering stars") or simply πλανῆται (planētai, "wanderers"), from which today's word "planet" was derived.
This is beautiful.
For me, Carl Sagan's voice is incredibly inspirational. He knows just what to say and how to say it to elicit a beautiful and optimistic feeling of wonderment.
And the visuals were stunning. A tantalizing glimpse into the next century or two of human exploration and experience.
Thank you for this.
Edit: Reddit thread at http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/2nseb3/wanderers...
What a fantastic video.
My favourite part: BASE jumping from Verona Rupes - the tallest known cliff in the Solar System - somewhere from 5km to 20km vertical:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110404.html
By comparison the tallest vertical drop on Earth is on the surreal Mount Thor at 1250m:
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/mount-thor-greatest-ver...
[Some great details - like the Earth coastlines used in the asteroid interior (mentioned on the film's website) and the Taijitu in the crater at 1:54].
Frustrating to realize that perhaps only 1 or 2 years of Earth's military spending would enable mankind to achieve this (approx $1700 billion/year). Not saying we don't need to spend money on defense, merely taking one the world's expenditures as a yardstick. It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
> It would be so great if mankind is able to cooperate in the colonization of our solar system.
We already collaborate for the exploration of the solar system, via robotic probes and giant telescopes. That's good enough. Colonization is an all different matter, and a weird one if you ask me. Earth is the largest place with a solid ground in the Solar system, and it's by far the most hospitable. Settling on an other planet like mars would cost an insane amount of money[1] and would at best double the available real estate for our species. It's not so sure it would be worth it, especially considering that a lot of people would end up having contributed for something that other people will benefit from.
It would be even better if we could spend this amount of money to fix the problems we already have on this planet, like global warming, pollution and hunger and stuff.
I imagine this cooperation will happen, probably towards the middle of this century, as resources become ever more scarce and general ignorance of the population at large decreases.
Wow; that was incredible. I wish it were three hours long.
That dude floating in that debris belt (ring of Saturn?) -- that looked a bit dangerous. Hopefully he had a force field around him.
There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
> There's so much out there, just waiting for us to get off our duffs and explore. We have much of the technology; if we could just stop spending trillions on machines of war and instead spend it on machines of exploration....
I agree with this 100%. But while we're moving outward, however slowly, don't forget Sagan's Caveat:
"Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand."
Absolutely, go see what's across the street. But make sure your house is clean and safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_S...
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
Well, it's not 3 hours (the Wikipedia page lists a 42 minute running time), but you might be interested in In Saturn's Rings, a documentary nearing release made using only photographs from space missions:
http://www.insaturnsrings.com/watch/
http://www.insaturnsrings.com/home/ (with another teaser video not on the "watch" page)
Awesome creation. Image Gallery and Explanation: http://imgur.com/a/Ur5dP
I would like to see a full length Wanderers movie. The optimistic feeling of adventure, travel and belief in science, would make it well worth spending a couple of hours watching.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy is apparently being made into a TV series now. This guy must work on the visuals for that. He gets it; he really, really gets it.
Beautiful.
You might be interested to learn that Erik Wernquist is also the person who created Crazy Frog some ten years ago.
Martian sunset at 1:50 is based on an actual photo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_rover#mediaviewer/File:Ma...
See also gallery here: http://www.erikwernquist.com/wanderers/gallery.html
Don't forget that you can download the video using youtube-dl (if you like me, get annoyed that Vimeo doesn't continue buffering when you pause it, and deletes the current buffer if you rewind)
Wander? From earth into the rest of the
solar system? If we'd grown up anywhere else
in this solar system, then the place, the
dream destination, in this solar system would
be earth.
Since I'm already here, no way do I want to leave!
Send some machines to gather some data and transmit it back to us here on earth? Fine. Maybe terrific. Go there, in person? For me, no way!
Crazy how one man can do something that normally would take hundreds of people to accomplish.
Wouldn't it be nice if Erik Wernquist was in charge of the filmatization of "2312" (the novel that inspired his "Iapetus Ridge" scene).
As a first step, I wonder how feasible it would be to have a constant presence around these planets and moons? A 'standard' orbiter, mass produced? I was reading about the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer mission, and it's incredibly exciting, but it won't get there until the 2030s, and even then it'll be a temporary presence.
The reason I think of this is that I recently came across this animation from New Horizons showing a 330km-high eruption that recently happened on Io:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Io_(moon)#mediaviewer/File:Tvas...
#mediaviewer/File:Tvashtarvideo.gif){kind=link}
It's utterly captivating, at least to me, and I can't help but wonder what effect it would have on the public's imaginations to be able to see images like that every day, in high definition, from all over our solar system.
Check out Reid Gower's videos as well, the Sagan Series, a collection of videos he did that also used Carl Sagan's voice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0&index=1&list=PLF...
And of course, Cosmos, which is where all the audio is from in all these videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dADUBcoEEHw&index=1&list=PLB...
All these visuals made by just one guy? I'm impressed. It has higher quality than many hollywood fx products.
In the same genre, I watch this when I need a touch of inspiration. They're quotations from The Pale Blue Dot, again with the Sagan voiceover.
Often we forget how far we've come, and how far we have to go. It's easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of regular life. When I listen to Carl Sagan sometimes I feel like I've glimpsed a bigger perspective.
Amazing video.
I especially like the world play here. Latin Planetes (as in planets) means wanderer. The name of this film can be understood as Planets.
Videos like this make me truly yearn for our civilization to expand off of our home planet.
I've finally gotten into some of Philip K Dick's works, as well as adventuring in the game Eve Online.
Both make me question how far we could be in technology, medicine, civilization, if we all could work together and not have schisms divide us.
I suppose it's the same as wishing for a utopia, though.
What makes it for me is that every place depicted in here actually exists, right here in our solar system.
I never thought I'd use this quote here, but:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
"As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts." - Herman Melville
Wonderful quote by Sagan.
That was beautiful. I'd love to read more about how exactly the visuals were generated. This is a lot more than spheres rendered w/ NASA photo textures.
Definitely check out the imgur gallery[1] with explanations of all the scenes!
I want to go to there
Which planet would allow for the largest/densest brain size in an organism that evolved to maximum size there?
Wow ! This is beautiful. Stunning graphics + Sagan's legendary voice almost left me in tears.
Todo list:
1- Invent powerful machines for simulations and calculations(ok)
2- Stop with childish religious beliefs altogether (in progress - 5ys)
3- Review completely the social contract (in progress - 50ys)
4- Fix mortality (urgent - 100ys)
5- Explore the universe (2114)
How I wish I was born in a time when mankind can travel the vast cosmos.
I really loved this. Are there anything else similar elsewhere?
Beautiful short film, excellent effects and voice-over. Like.
I loved it, thanks!
absolutely stunning. i will feel incredibly deprived if my exhaust without witnessing this sort of endeavor by mankind.
I'll just leave this here: http://youtu.be/FbpIwT9nV3Y?t=7m7s
Very uplifting.
Waiting.