I happened to have just watched that for the first time last week. Aware of the difficulty in stopping the 67,000mph initial speed after a shallow dive on the Parker Solar Probe, I noticed they did loop around Mercury. Pretty sure they looped the wrong way (adding speed with a counter clockwise loop, assuming we’d still use Earth-North as Solar-Up) and an impressively circular loop ended with an impressively sharp departure, at least in the graphic.

While we’re here, what’s the deal with roasting the antennas that were absolutely required for communication upon return to Earth? They couldn’t handle the relatively distant sunlight but would absolutely be exposed to much more energy when the payload/shield departed anyway. We’re also not going to pretend when they rendezvous with Icarus 1 they weren’t totally roasting the backside of the forward ship’s shield with the reflection off the rear ship’s shield?

I really enjoyed the first half/two thirds. It was very well laid out and I enjoyed the cast interactions. The group viewing of the Mercury transit was a little corny but is definitely something I expect astronauts to get excited for. The fight over the messages and the ensuing apology felt pretty accurate for Evans’ character. I don’t know when those actors’ careers took off but it’s certainly a heavy-hitting group, even if only in hindsight.

Anyway, I still have to watch the 3rd (4th?) movie in this head canon Warhammer40k Origin series. Event Horizon (1997), Sunshine (2007), and Pandorum (2009). Honorable mention: The Black Hole (1979) is basically the same story as Event Horizon but more comical. Meanwhile, I’m not actually enjoying these movies ending in divine non-scientific explanations. That’s probably why I enjoyed Ad Astra the most (so far) of this narrow band of the long-lost explorer space scifi genre.