Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino is not optimistic about humanity's current attempts to colonize space.
“Politicians, financiers, and space explorers are not thinking about how harsh things will be in the near future,” Tomino said in an interview with Japanese magazine Weekly Playboy, which was translated by Kotaku. "They’re not thinking about things like, "Isn’t it stupid to be saying what a territory [in space] is?" To the fundamental point, what even are people going to do on the colony? Humans need air and water to live in space, right? How long are they going to live in space?" Tomino questioned.
The 79 year old director and writer specifically singled out privately funded space programs for polluting the Earth in their attempts to reach space. “You’re saying due to the recent, non-governmental rocket launches, the rocket fuel is polluting the Earth,” the interviewer asked, to which Tomino replied “Yes... Just think about it, please." Tomino explained that rockets cause more harm than good, as they release a substantial amount of toxic substances into the atmosphere in order to bring a relatively small amount of material into space. "Today’s rockets couldn’t transport 1,000 or more people to the Moon, right?" the Gundam creator questioned. The article cited a report about the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in which a Russian scientist attributed the deaths of large amounts of the local wildlife to toxic chemicals spread by rocket launches in the area.
Tomino's latest work in the Gundam franchise, 2014's Reconguista in G, depicted a futuristic civilization that eschewed rockets and instead primarily moved people and materials into space with the aid of a massive orbital elevator. Tomino admitted that such a structure remains in the realm of science fiction, saying, "Moving things of that scale [on an orbital elevator] using artificial power would be absolutely impossible with the green energy that we have now.”
Yoshiyuki Tomino wrote and directed and wrote the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, which was greeted with low ratings and quick cancellation shortly after it originally premiered, but slowly grew in popularity thanks to re-runs and the success of Bandai's model kits based on the series. Gundam is now an internationally recognized, pop-culture icon that is the basis for a multi-billion dollar business spread out across anime, manga, model kits, video games, and other merchandise.
Five classic Gundam movies, all of which were directed and written by Tomino, were recently officially uploaded to YouTube for free viewing as part of the 2021 Gundam Online Expo. The first three movies are a condensed version of the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam, while the last two are re-tellings of Reconguista in G.
Source: Kotaku
