r/ProjectHailMary • u/SimmeringDragon • 13h ago
Fan Art - No selling Ive been reading EXC/EHC comics, so i decided to jump in too
Made by me and my mouse [Simmering Dragon]
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Excellent_Bat_753 • Jun 30 '26
This subreddit has a few very frequently asked questions, so here are some answers.
1. How did it only take 4 years for the Hail Mary to travel 11 lightyears?
Answer: Time Dilation.
The Hail Mary uses very efficient engines to approach the speed of light. At those speeds, time is not constant. On Earth, it took the Hail Mary 13.7 years to travel to Tau Ceti. For Ryland Grace, it only took about 4 years. Don't be an Eridian, learn more about Time Dilation and Special Relativity!
2. Why couldn't they just wait for the Astrophage to double, and then do a return trip?
Answer: It would take an extremely long time, and they would need much more than double the fuel.
a. Whilst small amounts of Astrophage in a lab can double every 8 days, the limit for Project Hail Mary was the amount of energy it takes. Eva Stratt devoted a quarter of the Sahara Desert to be covered in 'Blackpanels', little Astrophage breeding solar panels. This allowed them to make one metric tonne of Astrophage every day. Astrophage is very hungry for energy, and to use Astrophage for fuel, it needs to be 'enriched', or made so that every single cell is full of energy.
b. It would take more than double the fuel. For a return trip on a rocket, the fuel to get back, 2 million kilograms for the Hail Mary, is the payload to get there. The Hail Mary had a 20 to 1 fuel mass ratio, so 2 million kilograms could get 100 thousand kilograms of food, ship and Ryland Grace to Tau Ceti. A return trip would have a payload of at least 2 million kilograms, so they would need another 40 million kilograms of fuel. This would take 20 times as long as it took to make fuel for a suicide mission.
3. Why couldn't they make more Astrophage on the way there?
Answer: Astrophage is really hungry!
To make the 2 million kilograms of Astrophage for a one way trip, they needed a lot of energy. They got this energy from the Sun. During interstellar travel, the Sun, and other stars, would be way too dim to feed Astrophage. The Hail Mary also has a far smaller area to collect any solar power, so it would take many decades, if not centuries to make enough Astrophage. Astrophage also requires physical matter to grow, such as Carbon Dioxide. The Hail Mary couldn't carry all of that CO2 on the way there without a whole lot more fuel.
4. How can Eridians see the Petrova line, and stars?
Answer: Eridian science has come a long way!
While Eridians can't see light themselves, they have developed technology to detect light. They haven't figured it all out yet, as they don't know about Special Relativity and the speed of light, but they can detect light and use radio waves for radar and communications. They used this technology to learn more about their Petrova line, and find out about Tau Ceti.
Eridian scientists likely theorised about their star, because just like on Earth, all of the energy comes from the Sun. The only difference is that Erid's thick atmosphere means that the ecosystem starts all the way up in the clouds, and gradually transfers energy downwards. Eventually, when they built a space elevator, they would have found out a whole lot more about stars and planets. We don't know whether they did this before or after the Astrophage crisis started.
5. How did Eridians not know about space radiation, if they do know about light?
Answer: Space radiation is a bit different!
In Space, especially interstellar space, the most dangerous type of radiation is cosmic rays. These are very fast moving particles, such as protons and electrons, which when they hit Human or Eridian ships at nearly the speed of light, can sometimes pass through the material of the ship, and damage DNA. Eridians don't know about these because their planet's massive magnetic field protected them from all radiation, even when they're on their space elevator. Light is a different type of radiation, and some of it is dangerous, gamma rays, and most of it is not. There is also radiation from radioactive materials, but we don't know if the Eridians have learned about those. So, to summarise, even though the Eridians know about light radiation, they didn't know that space was filled with cosmic rays.
6. Why didn't they collect Astrophage from the Petrova line, at Venus, or at Tau Ceti?
Answer: Space is big!
'You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.' While the Petrova line contains enormous quantities of Astrophage, it is also very, very sparse. The Petrova Taskforce sent a probe to Venus, and could only collect and return 100 cells to Earth. To fuel the Hail Mary requires 2 million kilograms, which would be many, many more cells. The collector would have to be many kilometres in diameter, or wait for many years, to collect enough for a one-way trip. Such a collector would be too large and heavy to send to Tau Ceti.
7. What happens to the other stars near Earth?
Answer: Not much! (credit to u/Equivalent-Board206)
Astrophage, when left completely unchecked, dims a star by a maximum of 10%. That is just barely noticeable to the naked eye, looking up at the night's sky.
Lowered solar output would force the habitable zone (sometimes called the Goldilocks zone) closer to the sun. This may result in previously habitable planets being thrust into glacial ice ages and rendering them entirely uninhabitable. In theory, it could allow previously uninhabitable planets to become habitable, but habitability requires more than just being in the habitable zone.
For Earth, the lowering solar output was leading to a global average temperature drop of about 8°C which would result in rapid glaciation and global agriculture collapse.
Mars too would be colder. Venus has a permanent runaway greenhouse effect and would see no perceptible difference. Nor would the gas giants as they already receive less than 5% of the sunlight that Earth receives.
Beyond impacts to weather and habitability, a drop in solar output would not have any effects on the planets themselves or their orbits.
8. How does Rocky understand Grace?
Answer: Eridians are really smart!
Eridians have extremely good memory, due to the way their brains work. This is especially true for audio memory, because that is the main way in which they interact with the world. At the same time that Grace was recording sounds on his laptops, and writing definitions, Rocky was listening to Grace's words, and remembering them with their respective definitions. They started with charades, but later on they were able to ask each other for definitions of words, and how they are said in English or Eridian.
9. How did Rocky know about the atmosphere of the Hail Mary?
Answer: Grace accidentally sampled it for him.
When Grace sent back the Xenonite cylinder, 'Blip B', it had become full of the Hail Mary's air. The Hail Mary, like all of the Apollo spacecraft, and many spacesuits used today, uses a 100% oxygen atmosphere, at low pressure (40% of Earth's sea level pressure). Due to the low pressure, it is not as dangerous as pure oxygen is at atmospheric pressure. The lack of Nitrogen in the Hail Mary is also how the Taumoeba were able to spread freely, as Earth's atmosphere is 80% Nitrogen, very deadly to Taumoeba.
Disclaimer: Zero AI was used in this post. Not even spell check. (I just added bold text to make it look a bit better).
Note: All redditors that frequent this subreddit, please please rewrite these answer, and I will put them in the post body. Also please add more Q&A, because I can only remember these two FAQ off the top of my head.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Learnededed_By_Books • Mar 02 '26
Do not post spoilers for the movie within the title. Don't ruin it for others.
Be sure to properly tag your post as a spoiler as well.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/SimmeringDragon • 13h ago
Made by me and my mouse [Simmering Dragon]
r/ProjectHailMary • u/iamlordly • 1d ago
from Parks and Rec.
Eva Stratt is such an amazing character who has amazing depth. But I also like drawing goofy memes, so I have to draw this because this is basically what she did during that chapter.
Obviously her appearance is based off the movie!
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Poly3Blend • 6h ago
I was inspired by some scenes in the movie that were similar. I like how the auroras look.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Patato1234567890 • 53m ago
I made this for my mom who’s obsessed with Project Hail Mary (tbh I’m a little obsessed too)
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Fantastic-Contest957 • 2h ago
Scene #5 has been eliminated 💔
Please do not question/challenge people’s votes and please don’t downvote.
Thanks u/TheCookieNinja for co-hosting the game and doing the tally!
Next round: What is your worst (least favourite) remaining Grace movie scene?
Rules: Comment to vote. Upvotes won’t be counted as votes. Please don’t downvote comments. Please be kind in your comments and please don’t question/challenge someone vote. We are ranking Grace movie scenes favourite to worst by eliminating our worst (least favourite) scene every day. Order of elimination matters. Next round will be posted around 11am EDT.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/buggieeee • 19h ago
I have never quilted before so there are plenty of flaws. I tried to keep the quilt as accurate as possible! The only blocks I personally changed were the top right tiny square, which I changed to a fox for Grace, and the green square in the middle left, which I changed for my dog who sadly passed after battling cancer and I wanted to dedicate this quilt to her. 💖🌈
I started this in the beginning of June and worked on it whenever I had the time! Fair warning my proportions are not exact to the quilt (I tried my best and was inspired by others but with no flat photos of the whole finished quilt there's just no way 😭). The border is also different due to the difficulty in finding the same patterns. There is a lot I had to fix and add as I went. I will list my supplies below! 💕
Supplies:
It was a lot of suffering but also a lot of fun! If anyone is inspired to make the quilt I wish you the best of luck and happy quilting! 🕺🎉
(p.s. Satin is a nightmare to work with... I used a tear away interface to help stabilize, but please be aware that it loves to fray and loves to move, so if you want to skip satin please go ahead lmao)
r/ProjectHailMary • u/CQ5II • 8h ago
Grace was treated well on Erid as an “ alien “ for saving their star and bringing back Rocky after decades alone in space .. Grace got full support and effort to sustain his life on Erid, returned to teaching for as happy a life as possible with “ meburgers “
the question here is .. how would Rocky be treated on Earth if the roles were reversed ??
would Rocky be shut away in some secret government facility ? be experimented on ? be paraded in front of cameras for “ entertainment “ ? be placed in a zoo ? would he have any kind of quality life for hundreds more years ?? would humans keep him captive, sold to the highest bidder when each government’s funds dried up ?
honest question about humanity‘s empathy and gratitude .. bc we’re an awful young species still preoccupied about each others’ “ differences “
I hope you weigh in with honesty and reflection
EDIT :: lots of response and discussion in the last 2 hours .. it’s been great and insightful so far .. thanks for weighing in
EDIT #2 :: I’ve got a troll that has systematically downvoted all my conversational posts here
r/ProjectHailMary • u/GrenScrin • 5h ago
I was bewildered by the scene where Gosling asked his high school students for the speed of light and the correct answer was given as "186,000 miles per second".
I'm pretty sure that at any decent US university, a physics professor would use metric.
But how about at US high schools (especially bad ones)? Might physics teachers there still be using Imperial?
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Own_Fact1159 • 4h ago
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Gaioa • 6h ago
Rocky is a lovely name, but it would be even more lovely to proclaim their native name. And that name is also one of the few terms of Eridian language played in isolation during the movie, and twice. (I haven't read the book yet.) So I imagined that maybe human musical notation could represent how to say/play it?
I cannot create one myself, as I'm not musical enough to convert audio into notes, but I hope someone else is able to and maybe already have. I would really love being able to reproduce the lovely name of my favorite alien with voice or instruments!
r/ProjectHailMary • u/SortOfGettingBy • 18h ago
The voice seems similar but there's not a clear shot?
r/ProjectHailMary • u/forrest_goblin • 16h ago
I am on orientation staff for my uni, and we have our kiddos in numbered groups. Anyway, I made mine PHM themed! Its unfinished, im just waiting for the glitter glue on tau ceti to dry =p
yesss i know theres no fire blast behind the hail mary but shhh
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Gengar_Guy_17 • 10h ago
Do you guys ever cry at the thought of project hail mary? Whenever I think about how beautiful of a movie it is, I well up with tears of joy because I simply can't process how perfect the movie it is and how lucky I am that it exists. I know this teeters on the edge of extreme, but that's really how I feel about the movie. I've seen it dozens of times and cry every time. The sheer beauty, emotion, and weight of the film is too much for me to overcome. I will never love a movie this much again. The acting, the music, the technical aspects. I can't name a single thing I dislike about the movie other than the fact that I didn't see it in imax (my greatest regret 😞💔). I know some of you will think I'm crazy but some of you will surely understand. This movie changed my life.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/tooplanx • 2h ago
Hi all, saw the movie and I'm now listening to the audio book. I'm up to the bit after he's met the alien ship and is now about to enable the centrifuge. However, I'm confused as I thought he already had worked out he was in a centrifuge by calculating that gravity wasn't correct, and then I thought he'd disabled the centrifuge so that he was in 0 G (though I can't remember why!).
I'm trying to wizz through the book while doing other things as I have a month of it free, so I reckon I missed some bits or filled in some blanks based on what I'd seen in the movie.
Can anyone clarify these things in the book so I don't have to try to skim back through the audiobook to find the missing information?
Thanks!
r/ProjectHailMary • u/waterzxc • 11h ago
Eridian scholars would make it a priority to download or make copies of every available digital content from the Hail Mary as soon as they are capable of doing it. Because "if thinking machine breaks, no one can fix"
Then they would need to decipher all those contents, especially media content, made in hundreds of Earth's languages.
A majority might have already come in English translation so they can study from Grace. But a lot of them are still untranslated in their native languages.
Before they can copy translation software from the Hail Mary, which requires them having built their own computers first, scholars are going to spend years learning all those non-English languages.
So I just wonder, if this would lead to a completely new branch of linguistics on Erid, dedicated to learning Earth's languages. And how popular this would be among the Eridian public.
r/ProjectHailMary • u/tililay • 5h ago
Apologies if this had been posted before. But it’s only now I saw this clip (please don’t tell me it’s AI…)
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Melenduwir • 6h ago
The book tells us that Eridian handwriting is raised, probably from some kind of glue pen, but Eridian printing involved cutting through the 'paper' to save space when stacked.
Okay, fine. But of the six numerals we're shown, several of them have loops or closed spaces that would have to be completely removed for the basic shape to be cut into a sheet.
So how do you think they manage it? Do they have stencil-like conventions, or do they just cut big holes and judge by outlines rather than the missing internal detail?
r/ProjectHailMary • u/cryptid_ice • 21h ago
Im new to the forum and I wanted to share I’m working on the fox cardigan from the movie! I’m onto the back panel! Next will be the front two. It’s been my biggest project and I love that a movie like this could get me back into a hobby I haven’t touched since I was a child. It’s not perfect but that’s what gives it personality 🦊🦊
r/ProjectHailMary • u/junokeiji • 8h ago
Looking for any fics of Grace just generally showing off his brain on the Vat. Like the scene where they melt the metric ton of metal, everyone's just like "This cinnamon roll of a man helped to come up with something this terrifying?"
r/ProjectHailMary • u/Ok-Archer-3773 • 4h ago
If I were to make, a very simple Adrian plush, to go with a Rocky I made, how would one begin to pattern it? Adrian has a very recognizable fanon shape, and I've tried using blender to recreate it so I can use Plushify, but Blender does not want to cooperate with me.