re: The official Interstellar thread (spoilers)

quote:

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My argument is that given that from their perspective, the Lazarus and Endurance missions all failed miserably. So factoring in anything requiring the other side of the wormhole to survive was considered a low percentage move.

And because it wasn't judged to be a major factor in survival anymore with the ability to build massive stations, it jumped way down the priority list.

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I'm not quite sure I would agree with the notion that humanity viewed the Lazarus (or the Endurance missions) as a failure. Data transmission back through the wormhole was rudimentary, as they could only receive binary pings on an annual basis. Yet, those data were apparently sufficient to impel them to send a ship back through the wormhole to explore the most promising system. This was the purpose behind the Lazarus missions - arrive at your planet, establish your transmitter, and then enter into cryostasis and hope that someone eventually makes it to your planet. Humanity back on Earth received pings from all the planets within one of the star systems, which subsequently prompted them to revisit that system a decade later. The Lazarus missions seemed to have succeeded in that regard.

There was also no reason for Murph, Brand, or any of the other scientists on Earth to speculate that something dire had occurred to the Endurance crew. They all understood the effects of relativity and time dilation, and knew that 40 years for them could have been mere hours for the Endurance crew, depending on where they were. They didn't even have an opportunity to transmit anything back through the wormhole until they landed on Dr. Mann's planet, which was 20+ years later - and, given the revelation of Brand's lie to Cooper, it doesn't appear that they ever did.