Water Calculations - Was it Worth It?

[Skydiver]

how long you can last without water also depends on your physical situation. is it hot or cold? are you just sitting or are you moving and active?

[escyos]

how long you can last without water also depends on your physical situation. is it hot or cold? are you just sitting or are you moving and active?

ture.....i am very lazy

[Detox]

Seriously? Why is there even a debate on this?

They were quickly running out of water, they saw a chance to get some more.

What did you want them to do? Sit on their asses and hope that the water just magically replenishes?

[Descended]

people can survive a lot longer without water than 2 days. i only drink about hald a litre of water a day

You only drink a half liter a day, but you are making up the difference in your food. Humans require a set amount of water a day or they will die, it is that simple.

Seriously? Why is there even a debate on this?

They were quickly running out of water, they saw a chance to get some more.

What did you want them to do? Sit on their asses and hope that the water just magically replenishes?

Oh Detox, for some reason you don't like me, the point is that their method of water gathering was horribly inefficient and ultimately pointless. You would have thought that they would have tried a little harder to solve the disappearing water problem.

We know that the TPTB will blame the bugs for the missing water, but that also really doesn't make sense. Where did the water go? Even if the bugs were somehow made out of water and used it to reproduce themselves there were no where near enough bugs to account for the mass of tens of thousands of liters of water. If the bugs weren't the problem and they still were losing water, all the resources and manpower they spent on this mission would have gained them absolutely nothing, a few more hours of life at the most (and probably not even that if they are still losing water)

[renboy]

That away mission was more or less needed like the shuttle mission was needed in the previous episode - that is, it seemed very urgent at the time, but eventually proved to be pointless (and even almost too dangerous).

But still, you can't except them to just sit around the ship and do nothing while their water supply run out at an alarming rate...

[Avenger]

Two people where getting ice. A dozen or more were back on the ship solving the water disappearing problem on the ship. I don't get how you think they weren't trying hard to solve the problem.

[Starsaber]

And I bet that they would have sent more people for water/ice if they hadn't needed the space suits.

[Commander Zelix]

During the episode I felt the quantity of ice on the sledge was incredibly small on their first trip back. I was expecting one giant iceberg sized bloc of ice, when we knew they were only doing 2 trips. Especially sincew we saw one hanging down the iced water chute. Instead this was like a one or two days ration for all the people on the destiny. Incredibly small, but better than nothing I guess.

[beafly]

I believe the answer is no. I found myself snickering at their stupidity when they pushed the empty sled back through for a second (and final) trip.

I have to believe that Rush or Mathboy, looking at the first sled full of ice, and the clock on suit oxygen, combined with some quick math in their heads, would have quickly determined that the risk vs. reward on another sled full of ice was infinitesimally small and called the away team back.

But as with the rest of the series thus far, the return trip provided the opportunity for drama.

[Descended]

I believe the answer is no. I found myself snickering at their stupidity when they pushed the empty sled back through for a second (and final) trip.

I have to believe that Rush or Mathboy, looking at the first sled full of ice, and the clock on suit oxygen, combined with some quick math in their heads, would have quickly determined that the risk vs. reward on another sled full of ice was infinitesimally small and called the away team back.

But as with the rest of the series thus far, the return trip provided the opportunity for drama.

Especially given that the bugs were by far the biggest problem. They drank 10,000 liters of water in a few days. Getting rid of them was vastly more important than the ice. People may say that Young and Scott weren't needed for the bug problem, but they had already shown themselves to have some intelligence and Scott mentioned that they helped him on the desert world. Wouldn't it make sense to use him to try and communicate with them.

[Arjannl]

For human survival, the absolute minimum daily water requirement is only about 5 liters per day, whereas the daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, as well as for assuring survival, is about 50 liters per person.

Going by the barest minimum (5L) they brought back enough water for 30 people for one day. Given that the expedition is ~80 people, it doesn't appear to have been a very successful mission.

Well, i'm continental European, so thinking in Imperial Units will get me a headache But the normal water intake of an adult is 1.5 liters = about 0.40 'liquid' gallons. (OMG, I just learned via wikipedia that there're different kind of gallons in use?? ARGH )).
Theoretically, you can of course do with less for a few days in a row. I think that the stated 50 liters per day that are needed for cooking and bathing way too much. Perhaps there was a conversion error from 'gallons' to liters and it does make sense in gallons, but at least the liters part cannot be right.

[Descended]

Further digging on the Mayoclinic website yielded the following:

Replacement approach. The average urine output for adults is about 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) a day. You lose close to an additional liter of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so if you consume 2 liters of water or other beverages a day (a little more than 8 cups) along with your normal diet, you will typically replace the lost fluids.

Since we have seen their food prepared using water from the system (that yellow gruel they are eating) - it still equates to 2.5L per day just to maintain water balance for a sedentary adult. Going into strenuous exercise or injuries and you drastically increase that amount. As to the 50L per day for sanitation... I got that number from the United Nations World Water Development Report (http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/fac...ic_needs.shtml)

Regardless, they did not bring back enough water for even 1 day given the number of people on Destiny, so the mission was pretty much a failure.

[timmciglobal]

Everything they've done so far has been an idiotic failure. If 10 people from this message board got stranded on destiny we would have more common sense then this group.

Working on ship systems should of been the single priority not the domain of just rush.

The theme is "let's have some ****ing, some OMG OMG!!! moment, some buzzline catchy "Fix" that buys them exactly 1 episode and advance the plot 0 percent.

I'm waiting for the first episode where they actually discover SOMETHING useful. So far the ship who's entire focus was to support life and travel the universe to stargates seeded by the seeder ships has failed on every level to do that. It's single success is it's ability to keep systems which represent the most magical of systems in perfect working order it would seem while lacking any form of useful ancient technology discovered in countless other ancient stories.

BSG meets Voyager with the worst of both.

If they don't atleast unlock the god damn main computer or search the f'in ship in another 4 episodes I'm done with this series.

Tim

[Avenger]

They found 90,000 liters of water on board. That's useful. They found two working environmental suits. Those are useful. They have discovered that the ship recharges by flying into suns. Useful. They know that there is a water recycling system. That's useful. Saying that they haven't found anything useful is completely false.

You keep talking about common sense. Well, would it make sense for the Ancients leave the ship systems unlocked so that someone who's not supposed can board the ship and easily take over? Does it make sense to load the ship with loads of supplies that could be stolen? And don't forget that the Ancients would have been able to step on the ship and punch in whatever codes they need to take full control of the ship. Maybe the crew would be better able to work on that problem if they had all the proper equipment with them, but they don't. Your assumption that they should be able to magically get control of the ship just doesn't make any sense.

[timmciglobal]

Yea... but ... leaving their most ancient city... able to be resurrected by simply having the ancient gene but the destiny well that's locked up tight. Because the plan was to send this ship out to follow the seeder ship... then gate on board... but to insure they could safely explore the universe in this thing they built engine and shields which would work for hundreds of thousands of years but an enviromental system that would fail from no use and lock it down so tightly that even the basic systems to sustain life and support habitation would require some way to acess the ships computer... of course getting the ship to randomly stop at planets just in the nick of time that's supported without unlocking anything.

Seriously, the lure of ancient technology for me was how advanced it was. Nothing about destiny is advanced so far except for it's stark differences in technology compared to atlantis which was advanced.

This sad ridiculous design of the technology, logic in the systems, design of the ship, mission and every single plot point so far makes little to no sense for all we know about the ancients so far.

Tim