I’ve been watching some of the many excellent videos from the Starship Century Symposium. For example, the video below shows Freeman Dyson‘s very interesting talk in which he first discussed key factors in opening up the solar system to humanity in the coming decades and then moving out into interstellar space in the coming centuries. Lots of fascinating ideas presented. I particularly liked his emphasis on “cheapness” for space transports and other space hardware because affordability is crucial if large scale migration into and development of the solar system is to ever take place.
Category Archives: Space films and videos
“Europa Report” – a science fiction movie shaped by real science
The Europa Report is a highly realistic dramatic film (in a found-footage documentary style) depicting a manned mission to the Jupiter moon Europa. It is currently available for rent on line (Europa Report – YouTube) and here is a recent review.
The screenwriter Philip Gelatt is interviewed at io9.com about how he went about creating the film’s hard sci-fi approach : How Real Scientists Shaped the Story of Europa Report – io9.com
There’s always a lot of complaints that science fiction isn’t really about science. I thought it would be kind of fun to try and do something that had aspirations to be hard science fiction. Especially in film, because you don’t really see it that often. A lot of things get a kind of pass if the characters in the fiction speak like the science is real. I think a lot of people think that Star Trek has some science to it, and it does but it’s mostly because those characters seem intelligent in that world. But there’s no such thing as teleportation and warp drives and those kinds of things.
So, yes, it was always the goal to make the science real. And people liked it. Early readers responded a little bit more to the—not to be spoilery— “who’s going to die next” a little bit more than the science. But I think the appeal rests in the conglomeration of the two. The goal was to write something that was interesting and exciting but then also had this base of science to it.
Also, on a more personal level, I realized that I couldn’t read non-fiction unless I’m being paid to read it. So I was really excited to have an excuse to force myself to wrap my head around these things. I don’t normally sit around and read about Europan science and deep space travel.
Here is the trailer:
Video: “In Saturn’s Rings” to fly viewers through real space
The IMAX film project In Saturn’s Rings employes new techniques with high-resolution still photos from space, probes like the Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn, to give viewers a vivid authentic sense of flying through the scene. Below is a new trailer that gives a taste of how the IMAX film, set to be released in 2014, will take the audience into space with photos from 26 different missions: New trailer for In Saturn’s Rings is guaranteed to give you goosebumps
From the website:
In Saturn’s Rings is a non-profit giant-screen art film that takes audiences on a journey of the mind, heart and spirit from the big bang to the near future via the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. Currently in production after years of development, In Saturn’s Rings aims for global release late next year.
Composed entirely of still photographs using innovative visual techniques developed by the filmmaker, In Saturn’s Rings stretches the boundaries of the motion picture form. The film will feature powerful music by Ferry Corsten, William Orbit, Samuel Barber and melds non-narrative visual poetry & science documentary into a rich experience for audiences.
In Saturn’s Rings is a film that’s both personal and universal, experimental and sincere, science and spirit , non-narrative and documentary. The goal is to use large screen imagery, synchronized to powerful but moving music, to create an experience for those who see it, hear it and feel it.
Using hundreds of thousands of still images manipulated to create full motion, using “2.75D” photographic fly-through technology. The film will be presented in IMAX® quality 6K resolution on massive screens and concert-level surround systems to audiences in giant screen institutions, IMAX® theaters, fulldome planetariums, museums and select 4k digital cinemas.
Video: European ATV-4 flies to the ISS
Here’s a snazzy video from ESA about the ATV-4 cargo module that was recently launched to the International Space Station:
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Video: Curiosity sees Phobos passing overhead
This is really cool. The Curiosity Rover pointed its Navigation Camera upwards and caught the Mars moon Phobos crossing the dark sky:
Caption:
This movie clip shows Phobos, the larger of the two moons of Mars, passing overhead, as observed by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity in a series of images centered straight overhead starting shortly after sunset. Phobos first appears near the lower center of the view and moves toward the top of the view. The clip runs at accelerated speed; the amount of time covered in it is about 27 minutes.
The 86 frames combined into this clip were taken by the rover’s Navigation Camera (Navcam) on the 317th Martian day of Curiosity’s work on Mars (June 28, 2013, PDT). The apparent ring about halfway between the center of the frames and the edges is an artifact of the imaging due to scattering of light inside the camera.