"somebody" <x### [at] ycom> writes:

> I would say it's *entirely* unbelievable. Why on earth (or moon) would a
> company probably worth multi trillions of dollars not able to afford to keep
> a crew of more than one person on their  base? Does it make sense to any

Who said they can't afford it?

> reasonable businessman, not to mention paranoid shareholders, to trust all
> your company marbles to the sanity and physical health of a single human?

If it's been tested, yes. 

> Why go through all the trouble (ethical, legal, technical, logistic) trouble
> of using self-destructing clones, when shipping a proper and healthy crew
> every six months or so would probably be even cheaper and without all the

Why assume that it is unethical? Why assume it is cheaper? 

> risks? Plus, if you are going through all that trouble, why give your HAL
> clone an Asimovian conscience so it can screw up things royally when the

Perhaps because the clones function better with it? Plenty of other
potential reasons.

> inevitable comes? (BTW, if you are going to rip off so many pieces from
> previous movies, at least try to improve on them. Compared to the original,
> the new HAL's lines and voice acting was beyond forgettable. What were they
> thinking? That the silly smiley faces would somehow make up for its utter
> lack of character?)

Set up a strawman, then blow it down. Congratulations!

> It seems that the whole operation is automated, except for taking a full
> canister from the harvester and putting it into the launcher, which their
> engineers conveniently forgot to automate. Speaking of the launcher, it

By watching snippets of a few weeks of his life, you managed to figure
out the whole operation the company is running. Very perceptive.

> that they remembered about the lunar gravity). Instantenous earth moon
> videoconferencing (everyone and their dog knows there's a minimum of just
> over 2 sec delay) shows that they could not be bothered to look up even the

This may have been a slipup, although I have no memory of it. The only
Earth to moon conversation I recall was with the robot - and I don't
actually remember it.

Sounds like you wanted a science movie, not a science fiction movie.

And if you want a really poor movie from an SF perspective, go and watch
District 9.

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