You know, space travel isn’t like just hopping into your car and driving down to the station. It’s very serious business. Launch preparations take days or weeks, protocols have to be meticulously followed…but, fortunately, B-movies never have time for that sort of thing, so in B-movies space travel largely is like just hopping into your car and driving down to the station.
Still, appearances have to be kept, to a limited degree – so there’s no way to get around the checklist stage completely. But there’s no need to overthink it. For space travel you need a rocket, they have something which obviously is a rocket, so they’re all set. No need to check the rocket’s space-worthiness in detail – of course it’s space-worthy, why would anybody build a spacecraft that isn’t space-worthy? It would make no sense at all!
Drawing on his decades of experience in all fields, the Professor knows that half-assing things isn’t quite as bad if you look serious and dedicated while doing it. It’s a subtle difference, admittedly, but, hey, there going to space! Any little thing could mean the difference between life and death.
More on Thursday.