Some ‘Gravity’ scenes tough for this NASA guy
I was about 11 years old when my family visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was then that I developed a deep curiosity about space, in particular NASA. This fascination would lead me to enter a science fair in middle school. My project was on deep-space communications, an audacious topic even for a then 13-year-old. After graduating from college, my interest in space also led me to accept a position within the Mission Operations Directorate at the Johnson Space Center, turning down offers from General Motors and Boeing.
So hearing actress Sandra Bullock (as medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone) utter the words, “I hate space!” in the new suspense thriller, “Gravity,” came with a sting. The film opens with Bullock and George Clooney’s characters, who are members of the fictional Space Shuttle Explorer STS-157 crew, trying to repair the Hubble Space Telescope when orbital debris from a Russian missile launch causes a chain reaction of damage and sends Bullock tumbling into space.
Clooney (as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski) is then forced to perform an astonishing rescue of Bullock, while wearing a Manned Maneuvering Unit (jet pack), a task more complicated in reality. Afterward, they begin a race to get to the International Space Station before the orbital debris causes catastrophic damage.
Herein lies one of the small technical points I have with the film: Ask any self-proclaimed “space geek” and they, hopefully, will tell you the Hubble, at roughly 350 miles above Earth, and the International Space Station, at between 205 to 270 miles above, are on different orbital planes and hardly within the line of sight of each other.
Another conflicting point is how Clooney, wearing a Manned Maneuvering Unit tethered to a rescued Bullock, can maneuver from the Hubble to the International Space Station. You can’t just point, aim, fire. It is a little more complex than that. But unless you are curious about the physical implications, these de- tails shouldn’t really affect your appreciation for the film.
One of the most powerful visual scenes is the destruction of the International Space Station. It’s painful to watch, particularly for a NASA guy, even if it’s just a movie. In 3-D, it seems all too real, especially knowing personally a small number of the NASA staff who have contributed to this engineering marvel in real life. I have a sense of pride that comes from working for NASA. Take the recent announcement of the Voyager 1 space probe, the first man-made object to enter interstellar space; I felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction knowing that I am part of an organization that accomplished such a feat.
The people I work with take pride in their work and truly relish the hard things that we do. The International Space Station, working in collaboration with our International Partners, is one of those projects. In real life, it serves as a microgravity and space-environment research laboratory. Its fictional destruction in “Gravity” takes mere seconds.
“Gravity” shows the amazing work astronauts can do in space, even if I have some minor technical quibbles with the film. It’s also fitting that the movie opens during the 55th anniversary year of NASA, which was created in 1958.
I thoroughly enjoyed “Gravity” not just because of the strong performances by Bullock and Clooney, both Academy Award winners, and the excellent direction from Alfonso Cuarón, but also because it shows space the way I pictured it in my childhood dreams.
It reminded me of that 11-year-boy who first visited Kennedy Space Center and wondered, “What if?”