Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the Newton's-Apple dept.

tlezer writes:

"With seven Academy Awards, Gravity represents a unique opportunity for NASA PR. However, they have to balance 'a broad public interest in space and space exploration' with the many 'scientific errors made in the name of artistic license.' Wired examines the choices made by the filmmakers, and have supplemented their article with a respectful collection of tweets under the hashtag #RealGravity, including some stunning images."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:51AM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:51AM (#10391) Journal

    Nice to see the article work nicely without JScript. Kudos to Wired for that.

    On the whole, the movie may influence a few more kids to get into STEM classes, but I doubt NASA is going to see a funding boost as a result of Gravity. The political climate is somewhat anti-science in the US, where we have money for a new Noah's Ark and debate having Intelligent Design in secular schools.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Boxzy on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:33AM

      by Boxzy (742) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:33AM (#10401) Journal

      --- funding boost as a result of Gravity. ---

      Seriously? The whole movie was a (lying) propaganda film about how dangerous space industry is.

      No matter that it was drawn from whole cloth, most people won't know or want to know any different.

      --
      Go green, Go Soylent.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:17AM (#10420)

        Dangerous?

        I know how to get interest in the space industry! X-GAMES GRAVITY EDITION!

        The sad thing is that it would work.

        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:36PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:36PM (#10646)

          I know how to get interest in the space industry! X-GAMES GRAVITY EDITION!

          Or just this [youtube.com]

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by velex on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:40AM

        by velex (2068) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:40AM (#10438) Journal

        Propaganda? I was just geeked that somebody made a movie about Kessler Syndrome [wikipedia.org] and that it was hard sci-fi to boot. Here I was thinking I was just going to have to watch Planetes [wikipedia.org]. Might do that anyway.

        I don't think the general public in the USA at least needs any propaganda to convince them that space is "too dangerous" and "not worth it." I think that's probably your point, but I think the word propaganda goes a little too far.

        The situation with space travel in the USA reminds me of a line from one of the opening scenes of 2010: The Year We Make Contact where Moisevitch is trying to convince Floyd that the American experts need to be on the Russian Jupiter mission.

        "A Russian craft, flown by Russians, carrying a few poor Americans, who need our help. That also doesn't look too bad on the front page of Pravda."

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:21PM

          by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:21PM (#10588) Homepage Journal

          I was just geeked that somebody made a movie about Kessler Syndrome and that it was hard sci-fi to boot.

          Too bad they got so much physics wrong, though. I didn't see the movie until last Thursday when it arrived in my mailbox but I read quite a few articles about it from actual astronauts, including Mike Massimino who was on two missions servicing the Hubble. He was impressed with the movie's attention to detail with the sets and props (he said the same thing about the ISS on the Big Bang Theory; he was on the ISS with "Fruit Loops" and was in several episodes). But neither he nor any of the other astronauts were impressed by the physics.

          I got past the orbital mechanics without too much suspension of disbelief, but the scene where Clooney's character gets lost was just retarded. The scene where Clooney opens the hatch when Bullock has her helmet of seemed stupid until it's revealed she was dreaming.

          On the whole, though, I thought it was a great movie, physics notwithstanding.

          --
          mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:34PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:34PM (#10684)

            "The scene where Clooney opens the hatch when Bullock has her helmet of seemed stupid until it's revealed she was dreaming."

            You can survive in space without a spacesuit, for perhaps about 30 seconds, and she was inside the capsule the whole time, and it was less than 30 seconds.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by aXis on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:47AM

      by aXis (2908) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:47AM (#10407)

      The article might work but it's just click bait. There is nothing of value other than pointing out that the twitter posts exist.

      I dont use twitter so was hoping the posts might have been reproduced in the article.

      • (Score: 2) by hubie on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:10AM

        by hubie (1068) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:10AM (#10418) Journal

        I agree. The article summary almost had more in it than the Wired article.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Boxzy on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:29AM

    by Boxzy (742) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:29AM (#10399) Journal

    ruined the movie for me. It's a backpack, not a spacecraft!

    --
    Go green, Go Soylent.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by velex on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:52AM

      by velex (2068) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:52AM (#10441) Journal

      There were lots of things that were implausible, particularly how all everything just happened to be in convenient distance (but just far enough away to build tension) of the ISS.

      I was just glad to watch a sci-fi that didn't involve lasers that move slower than light that you can see being fired by ships that maneuver like airplanes or else god-like aliens.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:40PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @03:40PM (#10687)

        Screw that. I'd rather watch sci-fi that involves your slower-than-light lasers and god-like aliens and other such stuff. At least with that kind of sci-fi, you know it's not real, and really isn't attempting to be too real, so you can accept a bunch of plot devices like warp drives and phasers.

        With movies like "Gravity", "Mission to Mars", etc., they're set in the present day (or very close) and purport to be very realistic, when in fact they're more fantastical than LotR, since they completely ignore the basic laws of physics.

        If I'm going to watch a movie that ignores physics, I'd rather it not involve the present day or look realistic in any way.

    • (Score: 1) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:49AM

      by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:49AM (#10462) Homepage Journal

      ... the MMU... is a backpack, not a spacecraft!

      I thought that was SAFER [wikipedia.org].

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:40PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:40PM (#10649)

      The magic MMU fuel reserve wasn't the problem for me as much as the cavalier way it was being used as a toy in the opening sequences. Astronauts do not fuck around and go for a joyride ever, much less on a spacewalk.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh