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."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by velex on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:40AM
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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:21PM
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
"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.