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The purpose of the job was NOT to be an astronaut, but to drill. They sent astronauts with them to fly the ship.
If you were in space and needed surgery, would you want them to train an astronaut to to perform the surgery, or would you want them to send a doctor with astronauts to perform the surgery.
Drilling, especially in this environment, is a HIGHLY specialized skill and it would have meant the end of the WHOLE world if they failed.
I mean, even with all their training and the best equipment NASA could send them with they still almost failed at drilling through the meteor.
And, yes, I know they drilled in the wrong spot, but you have to expect the worse to happen in an extinction level event.
So, yes. It would have been a much better plan to send the best drillers in the world with astronauts rather than the other way around.
The drillers weren't flying the ship, they weren't driving the rover, they weren't docking to the space station.
So, what do you think would be easier with a month to train, teaching a bunch of drillers to walk and move around in super low gravity, or train a bunch of astronauts to drill, put together the machinery, understand how different types of minerals will react to the drilling, no what to do when they hit a pocket of methane or other gas, etc.
I think people think that because it's a blue collar job that ANYONE can drill. And that may be true, but to do it at that level and that complexity, especially with the fate of the world on the line it 100% makes sense to have the world's best drillers be accompanied by astronauts rather than train the astronaut.
And, yes. I know the director even apologized for the movie, but he either did it because of all the fan pressure, or because he's also just plain wrong about the movie he directed.
Consider that the nukes blast will not turn into a bang wich could drive the asteroids parts away due to lack of an atmosphere. The nuke would rather bake or fuse the former fluffy like consitency to a solid rock wich would worsen the situation.