Gravity - It Kept Me Pinned To My Seat - Awesome Film

Gravity - 2013

I don’t remember which film I was at this past spring when I saw the trailer for Gravity, but I do know that I said that I had to go to this one as soon as it hit the big screen.  I did see it today and was very much impressed.

Astronaut Matt Kowalski and Mission Specialist Dr. Ryan Stone are on a mission to make repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the shuttle Explorer.  While on a spacewalk, Kowalski is testing out a jet-pack, performing maneuvers.  From what I could gather from his dialog, he is an astronaut on his final mission and is going to make the most of it.  At the same time, Dr. Stone is working from the shuttle’s Canada Arm on the telescope’s repairs.  There are three other members of the shuttle crew with one outside in the cargo bay apparently working on experiments, and two others on the inside of the shuttle.  The shuttle crew is informed by Mission Control that the Russians have attempted to destroy one of their own satellites by shooting it down with a missile.  The shuttle crew is further informed that this situation should not interfere with their mission.

Well, the situation changes rather rapidly when it is discovered that the debris from the destroyed satellite will indeed cause a threat to everything in the same orbit, including Explorer and her crew.  It isn’t long before the Explorer crew is informed to abort the mission due to the threat.  Kowalski jettisons the Hubble, but before the crew can reach safety, the debris field reaches the shuttle and causes catastrophic damage to it, and the deaths of everyone on the crew except for Kowalski and Stone.  Unfortunately, apparently the entire communications network, so there are no lines of communications between Mission Control and the surviving astronauts.

When the shuttle is destroyed, Dr. Stone finds herself spinning off alone.  She is rescued by Kowalski, but it takes almost all of the fuel in his jet-pack.  Kowalski decides to head over to the nearby International Space Station to use a Soyuz to return to Earth.  After a rather long trip to the ISS, Kowalski is forced to sacrifice himself because if he doesn’t, both he and Dr. Stone will die. Dr. Stone is left to her own wits and training to get herself safely back to Earth.

Gravity was filmed with mostly digital elements and only two live actors, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.  The visual effects are stunning and so realistic.  I am a huge fan of the space program and watch NASA television on a regular basis.  The scenes showing the insides of the ISS and the Soyuz are quite authentic.  The scenes of the Earth from orbit are flawless, including scenes of a hurricane and the aurora borealis to add visual interest and authenticity.

There isn’t a great deal of character development with this film other than a little back story on Dr. Stone’s character.  One gets the impression that Stone is a rather helpless character before she is left on her own by Kowalski, but it is an illusion due to the fact that she really has no control over her fate when she found herself free-floating in space.  After being left alone, she demonstrates that she has the ability to think her way out of a seemingly impossible situation, but only by chance because everything she needed to survive was conveniently (actually to conveniently) at hand.  Kowalski’s character was that of a typical fighter jock with a devil-may-care attitude toward everything, but also one who could get down to business when the situation calls for a cool head.

As in real life, no story is without its flaws and this one has a few that I would like to point out.  While the physics are mostly accurate in their portrayal, there are a few points that may bother the more knowledgeable audience member.  For instance, I know that if one puts water on their skin in orbit, that water will cling to the skin unless it is acted on by another force.  In one scene, Dr. Stone cries and her tears leap off of her cheek to float around the cabin.  While this is an inaccuracy, I think it was an intentional one for the sake of the drama taking place.

The biggest problem though, (and again, this would only be a problem for those who insist on total accuracy in films) is that the story shows the orbits of the ISS, the Hubble, and the communications satellites all share the same orbital plane above the planet.  In actuality, the orbits of these objects are all quite different from one another.  The ISS orbits at around 235 miles above the Earth while the Hubble orbit is a bit higher at around 350 miles.  Communications satellites have a much higher geosynchronous orbit of 22,500 miles above the planet’s surface.  While it might be conceivable that the debris field would spread out in dimensions and could cover over a hundred miles, it would seem virtually impossible for communications satellites would be affected.  I think that the writers and director of the story need to be given some latitude though; after all, it is a fictional story and not a documentary.  While these facts did cross my mind while I watched the story play out, the knowledge of them didn’t get in the way of my enjoying the movie.

There was one inaccuracy that falls under the category of eye-candy that is worth mentioning.  At one point, after entering the ISS, Dr. Stone no longer needs her cumbersome EVA suit and chooses to remove it revealing that she is wearing a pair of short-shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt.  In actuality, astronauts wear long-johns that have a network of tubing that circulates water to warm or cool the astronaut, and there is also a number of sensors to monitor an astronaut’s vital signs while on EVA.  So I can only conclude that this scene was meant to add to the bling factor of the film.  Whether this is good or bad is up to you, but there it is.

I do have one warning for those that have a problem with vertigo; objects in this film are constantly spinning and moving at rapid paces and may prove problematic when viewed on a big screen format; especially in a 3D or IMAX situation.  

The story is good, the direction is good, and the visuals are stunning.  I very much enjoyed this film and give it my highest recommendations.  One doesn’t necessarily need to like science fiction to get into this story.  There are no super-human feats of heroism, no gadgetry other than what one would expect from a space story based on reality, and no epic battles, so those who are turned off by the action type sci-fi films need not avoid this one.  I actually have a tough time calling this science fiction per se; I would have to tag it more like a dramatic depiction of a survival story set in a realistic backdrop of space.  This film should appeal to a wide range of viewers.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH’!

The Buzz on How to get to MARS...

Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin with Leonard David (2013)

I recently read Buzz Aldrin’s new book, Mission to Mars on my Kindle.  One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand what Buzz is proposing in his vision of the future for manned space exploration, but it sure wouldn’t hurt.

After mothballing the Space Shuttle, and hitching rides with the Russians to get to and from the ISS, NASA has pinned all of its hopes on the future of space flight on the new Orion capsule, and their most powerful launch system to date, the SLS (Space Launch System).  Touted as a deep-space exploration vehicle that could carry up to seven passengers, the Orion capsule’s construction is well under way and a test flight is scheduled for 2015.  According to Buzz, this is a shortsighted and time wasting endeavor when there are practical and achievable options out there that will eventually lead to a permanent presence on our sister planet, Mars.

We already know of Buzz’s many accomplishments during his life.  Receiving his Ph.D. from MIT, his doctoral thesis outlines the methods that have been used by NASA since the Mercury program that allow vehicles to rendezvous and link up in in orbit around the Earth, and later allowed the Apollo LM to return to the CM following a moon landing.  During the Shuttle days, his methods were used to retrieve and repair satellites, the Hubble telescope, and today are used to get Soyuz craft to the ISS.  His methods earned him the name Dr. Rendezvous in his early days as an astronaut with NASA.

Buzz’s most notable accomplishment, of course, was as a member of the Apollo 11 crew that touched down on the moon and successfully returned samples of lunar material to the earth for future study in July of 1969 (I was twelve years old).

What Buzz proposes is an economical and efficient way to begin to reach beyond low Earth orbit, leave the shores of the cosmic ocean, and take those first tentative steps into the depths of space.  He proposes what he terms a Unified Space Vision headed by a non-governmental space council made up of scientists and engineers that have a vision encompassing all nations of our planet to work for a single goal, which is a permanent human presence on Mars.  He doesn’t discuss the economics of his proposals very much, but rather the purpose of his essay is to possibly inspire the vision of future space travel in those who would be dealing with the financing of such a project.

Mission to Mars opens with a brief look back to the history of space flight and how the policies of space exploration have changed in the four to eight year cycle of the U.S. presidents and their policies.  In other words, our exploration of space has in the past, and continues to depend on the vision of a single person who proposes and sets policies based on the political climate of the times.  For instance,  JFK proposed that by the end of the 1960’s, the U.S. would land people on the moon and return them safely to the Earth, but the reasons for this endeavor were not solely fueled by the need for exploration and scientific understanding, but rather as an outcropping of the Cold War between the U.S. and the then Soviet Union.  We had to beat those Russians to the high ground of space to remain on top.  He also points out that explorations of our own planet have been tied to similar motivations throughout history.

The most intriguing parts of Buzz’s writing is on the how to do it that is being proposed, and some of that is already under way.  First, low Earth orbital activities need to be left to private enterprise.  As many of us know, efforts are already underway thanks to the efforts of companies such as SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences Corporation are already either making, or will be making flights to the ISS with supplies and returning cargo to Earth.  The future promises that these companies will also be ferrying astronauts within the next few years.  Next, he asks why NASA is planning to go to the moon again.  Why not leave the moon to other entities to explore and bring back resources while we set our vision to the future?  We’ve been to the moon, it is time, in Buzz’s vision, to move beyond the Earth-moon system and continue on to Mars and the asteroid belt.

Buzz proposed that we set up a system of vehicles that move between the moon and the Earth, and between the Earth and Mars called Cyclers.  These Cyclers will be constant motion between celestial bodies to ferry people to and from destinations.  These cycling vehicles could be further supported by craft that are permanently “parked” at points called Lagrangian Points where gravitational forces and the orbital motions of bodies balance.  These proposals, for one thing, would eliminate the need for having to constantly lift the bulk needed to reach bodies in space, which most of that bulk consists of fuel and water.  The moon, Mars and asteroids could be mined for those vital resources that are needed for propulsion to and from the cyclers.

Buzz has consulted with numerous experts in many fields of study to put together his Unified Space Vision and presents it in a way that is understandable to the layman and is a good read for those that are interested in the future, as well as some aspects of the past of space exploration.

It is my sincere hope that Mission to Mars gets into the right hands as an inspiration to future policy makers to see that it doesn’t necessarily take a cold war to spark exploration and scientific discovery.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH!

No Room For Failure: More NASA History...

Failure Is Not An Option: Mission Control From Mercury To Apollo 13 And Beyond by Gene Kranz – 2009

Who received most of the accolades when a successful, or for that matter, an unsuccessful space mission was completed?  Well the answer to that question is obvious; of course it is the astronauts who risked their lives to explore the unknown.  But behind those heroes were thousands of people who often times were among the unsung heroes that helped to launch, fly, and land those spacecraft.  Chief among those were the flight controllers which is the subject of Gene Kranz’s Book Failure Is Not An Option.

Kranz’s book is all about the corps of flight controllers that manned Mission Control for every minute of every day that there was an American spacecraft aloft.  He traces the history of flight control from the very beginnings of the space program through the entire Apollo program.

The early years of space exploration were marked by a competition between the United States and the Soviet Union vying for dominance with the Soviet Union scoring decided victories, leaving the United States playing a game of catch-up.  While the Soviets were sending satellites and people into orbit around the planet, the United States’ rockets were having a difficult time just getting off of the launch pad.  When the U.S. Finally did begin successfully launch payloads, President John F. Kennedy declared to the world that before the end of the 1960’s, the U.S. would successfully send an American to the moon, and return them safely (according to Kranz, the plans prior to Kennedy’s speech were to actually land Americans on the moon in the mid 1970’s).

Kranz traces the history of manned space flight from the perspective of his role as a NASA flight controller.  During his thirty year tenure, he was a firsthand witness to all of the events including projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.  He goes into some detail on all of the flights, and goes into even greater detail on the flights for which he was the chief controller including the first landing on the Moon of Apollo 11, and the near tragedy that was Apollo 13.  He gives an accurate picture of the missions including the problems that were encountered and solved and discusses the reasons for and the solutions to the problems that allowed Americans to take pride in our achievements in space exploration.

Kranz’s narration is sometimes difficult to read because he get quite technical at times, but this book is a must read for those of us who enjoy knowing what went on behind the scenes at NASA.  However, if you are looking for scandal, you will not find it in this book, it is not an expose, but rather a factual account of the history of manned spaceflight from the flight controller’s point of view.

Not only does Kranz revisit the past in Failure, he also speaks to the future of American space exploration by expressing his disappointment (which is felt  by many of us today as American astronauts hitch rides into space aboard Russian rockets) in the present state of affairs: “Entering the twenty-first century, we have an unimaginable array of technology and a generation of young Americans schooled in these technologies.  With our powerful economy, we can do anything we set our mind to do.  Yet we stand with our feet firmly planted on the ground when we could be exploring the universe.”

I think that Failure is a worthwhile read for students of space flight history and those who want to know what goes on behind the scenes at NASA.

In other news…

There is an ongoing debate in the science fiction genre that would seem to search for the answer to a question that has occupied my mind of late; what is science fiction and what is not.  I had the opportunity to once again be a guest on the Scifi Diner Podcast and explore this question with Scott, and Miles (podcast hosts), Raul Ybarra (sci-fi fan, blogger, and mad-scientist), and Keith DeCandido (sci-fi author).  Our conclusion?  Well you are going to have to listen to the show.  I am told that it will be released sometime this coming week and I will add the link to it when it comes available.  We visited for almost two hours on this and could actually have talked longer.

I received a very nice gift from Nick Eftimiades in the mail.  He sent me an autographed copy of Edward of Planet Earth, a work of fiction in the style of Douglas Adams.  Click HERE to read my review and recommendation for Edward.  I should also like to point out that Eftimiades is not only an author, but he is also active in many other areas including Chinese espionage, and the defense of our planet from threats from space.  I, for one, have gained more interest in possible threats due to the recent meteor incidents in Russia and on the east coast of the United States.  Recently, Nick has posted something that may sound like science fiction, but it is truly a threat and needs to be addressed.  Click on the link to read his United States Commission on Planetary Defense.

Blog posts from me have become quite infrequent of late because real life has a tendency to get in the way of leisure pursuits.  Hopefully, as the school year comes to a close, I will be able to write more frequently, but until then…

There it is.

Q’aplaH!

Twists and Turns Galore: Book Review...

Trek fans were introduced to the Mirror Universe in the TOS episode, “Mirror, Mirror.”  While in negotiations with a race of pacifist humanoids known as the Halkins, an ion storm caused Kirk and some of his crew to exchange places with their counterparts in a mirror universe while transporting back to the Enterprise.  Kirk found himself in command of a ship that looked very much like the Enterprise, but that is where the resemblance ended.  In the Mirror Universe of Star Trek, while things may have looked similar, political structures, protocols, and especially people were very different in behavior.

In later series, the Mirror Universe is explored in Deep Space 9 on numerous occasions, and again on the Enterprise series.  Until now, my knowledge of the Mirror Universe was strictly through the television series.  I enjoyed the incarnations of the Mirror Universe in both TOS and Enterprise, however I never really appreciated the episodes in Deep Space 9 that dealt with the alternate reality.  I found those episodes actually to be a bit silly; feeling that the writers had over-done the caricatures of the characters from DS-9.

So you might think that I was a bit hesitant to read a book that dealt with the Mirror Universe, and you would be right, I was hesitant, but no longer.

I finished reading Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Obsidian Alliances and was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it immensely.  Obsidian Alliances is a collection of three short novels by renowned Trek authors Keith R. A. DeCandido, Peter David, and David Mack (Mr. Mack wrote his entry under the pseudonym Sarah Shaw).  The stories in the three are set in the Voyager, New Frontier, and DS-9 alternate universes.

 Mr. DeCandido’s contribution to this project is entitled The Mirror-Scaled Serpent and is set in the Voyager universe.  When one starts reading, it feels like the beginning of Voyager all over again, only in this universe, there is no Voyager crew and it is Neelix and Kes that are sent to the Alpha Quadrant of the galaxy, where the discovery of persons with telepathic abilities are highly sought after and prized.  The Terran Resistance in the persons of Chakotay and Tuvok  take on the task of keeping Kes out of the hands of the Klingon/Cardassian Alliance who would use her telepathic abilities to their advantage.  Without spoiling the story too much, I will also say that the Janeway/Chakotay relationship that many fans would have liked to see in Voyager happens in DeCandido’s Mirror Universe, but there is a twist to it.  As a matter of fact, this story is full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing on what to expect next.  A very clever story and one any Voyager aficionado will enjoy.

Next up is Cutting Ties by Peter David, and is set with the characters from his New Frontier series, which I have blogged about before.  But this New Frontier setting is nothing like the one we know with Makenzie Calhoun being the hero of his native planet Xenex, nor as the adventurous and sly captain of the Excalibur.  Instead, he is rejected by his father after a battle for the independence of Xenex, and given into slavery to suffer under the Romulans.  In the New Frontier novels Mackenzie is known as Mack, but in this version, he is mostly referred to as Muck, because when asked by a prominent Romulan what his name was, he stuttered.   Under the tutelage of a female, Muck grows into a perversely similar character of Mack in the Prime Universe.  New Frontier fans, such as myself, will appreciate this installment by Mr. David.

Finally, the collection closes with David Mack’s vision of the more familiar goings-on in the DS-9 saga.  Titled Saturn’s Children, David Mack (again writing under a pseudonym) looks in on the deposed Intendant Kyra Nerys who lost her position to Ro Laren from the TNG series.  This is the story of her plight to regain her political status by hatching a plot that will crush the Terran Alliance if successful.  This story also contains many surprises as Kyra manipulates her way through a maze of twists and turns that, at least in my opinion, redeems the DS-9 mirror universe in ways they could not have shown on network television.  I’ll just say that if David Mack had written the Mirror Universe episodes for DS-9 the way he wrote this story, it would have been far more interesting for me. (Just an aside note here: David Mack did participate in the writing of two DS-9 episodes that I know of, and they are among my favorites.  They include the episodes “Starship Down” and “It’s Only a Paper Moon.”)

The three stories contained under the cover Obsidian Alliances are dark, gritty, and engaging.  They are long enough to include a lot of detail and character development while at the same time short enough to be read in perhaps one or two sittings.  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the stories of the Mirror Universe, but also to Trek fans that may not be familiar with the alternate universe saga from Star Trek.  These stories will fire your imagination and might even give you pause too because the descriptions of the characters are very vivid.

Other Activity I Am Currently Engaged In…

I also finished the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' series of novels, John Carter of Mars.  I don’t know why I never looked at these books before as I became intrigued by Carl Sagan’s description of them in his Cosmos television series many years ago.  I also recently rented and watched the film titles John Carter and although it was pretty much panned by the critics, I found it to be a great movie and will be purchasing it sometime in the future to add to my growing BluRay library.  I do have to thank the hosts of Starbase 66 and The Scifi Diner for convincing me to rent the movie.

I also, at the urging of the Starbase and Diner rented Dredd starring Karl Urban of the JJ Abrams Star Trek film released in 2009.  I had watched about 30 minutes of this film and found myself thinking that I didn’t want to watch any more, and I finally stopped the film 20 minutes later and did not, nor will I finish watching this movie.  I found this movie to be way over the top with violence and perverted scenes that I found particularly offensive and beyond what would be needed to tell a story.  ‘Nuff Said.

I am currently reading Failure is Not An Option by Gene Kranz.  He is a retired flight director from the heydays of the Apollo Program, and so far, I am enjoying this book because it brings back a lot of memories of watching mission coverage while I was growing up, and it also gives a behind the scenes look at the workings of what goes into preparing and executing a NASA mission.

I am also listening to several podcasts and am severely behind.  I am either going to have to cut back on those, or start listening more than I currently do while driving back and forth to school.

One of the highlights of the past several weeks for me is watching the television series Continuum on the SyFy Channel.  I got hooked very early on in the series and it has become one of the things that I must do on Monday nights.  Along with that, I discovered a podcast that deals exclusively with Continuum called Liber8 with Mike and Dave.  In this show, Mike and Dave dissect each episode and break it down so one can actually understand what is taking place in the series in fine detail.  Watch the show and let Mike and Dave do the heavy lifting for you, compare what you think with what they think, and if nothing else, stay current while the gaps get filled.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH!