Movies about Space shuttle
— Hollywood has finally taken inspiration from the decade-ago move of a NASA space shuttle through the streets of Los Angeles and it only took the moon falling out of the sky for it to happen.
«Moonfall,» which opened in theaters on Friday (Feb. 4), is the first major motion picture to use the 2012 delivery of the space shuttle Endeavour to the California Science Center as the direct basis for a plot point. (Note: this article includes spoilers, but only as it relates to the use of Endeavour in «Moonfall,» which was also included in the film’s advance marketing.)
Up until now, only a short film («Satellite Beach,» 2014) that was shot guerrilla style during the orbiter’s move and an implied reference in the recent Netflix satire «Don’t Look Up» have adapted the shuttle spectacle, which was witnessed live by millions of people, including many in the entertainment industry.
«I am surprised it took so long,» Dennis Jenkins, director of the California Science Center’s project to display the space shuttle Endeavour and a technical advisor to «Moonfall,» said in an interview with collectSPACE. «I have heard rumors there are other movies or television shows about to be released that use a similar premise.»
«I am also somewhat surprised at the way [‘Moonfall’ director Roland] Emmerich approached it,» Jenkins said.
On the road (again)
«It was a provocative idea,» Emmerich told collectSPACE. «And, by the way, it was one of the first ideas that we had.»
As Emmerich recalls, having come out to see it for himself in 2012, the delivery of Endeavour involved a modified Boeing 747 jetliner ferrying the orbiter piggyback to Los Angeles International Airport and then a convoy towing the shuttle on a three-day journey through the streets of Los Angeles to retire on display at the California Science Center.
The move was always considered a one-way trip.
In «Moonfall,» NASA has to find a way to send a crew to the moon after it exhausts its supply of more modern launch vehicles.
«How do you plan on getting up there?» ex-astronaut Brian Harper (actor Patrick Wilson) asks NASA executive and his former crew member Jocinda «Jo» Fowler (Halle Berry) in the movie. «You know all of our shuttles are in museums.»
«The Endeavour is right here in L.A.,» replies Fowler. «I know it sounds completely crazy.»
«No . this is a whole other level of insane,» Harper responds.
In subsequent scenes, Fowler, Harper and K.C. Houseman (John Bradley) are shown entering Endeavour’s display pavilion followed by the orbiter being transported down a street as moon-strewn debris is moved out of its way. (The latter was achieved through a combination of practical effects and CGI, with the streets of L.A. being recreated in Montreal and Endeavour inserted digitally.)
Endeavour is then shown being ferried atop a shuttle carrier aircraft and, finally, standing with two solid rocket boosters and an external tank on Space Launch Complex-6 (SLC-6, or «Slick-6»), a Vandenberg Space Force Base launch pad that was originally built (but never used) by the U.S. Air Force to launch shuttles on dedicated missions for the Department of Defense.
The Endeavour transport scenes in «Moonfall» were originally intended to be a bit longer, but during editing, it was decided to «get to space sooner,»said Emmerich.
«It was maybe two minutes longer, that whole process, and there was also a scene inside the 747 on its way to Vandenberg,» he said, describing the cut scenes.
To space (or bust)
«Endeavour would still work, to fly today. Everything is still in there,» Emmerich told collectSPACE.
Well, maybe not everything.
«The most obvious problem with making Endeavour flightworthy is that there are no main engines in her,» said Jenkins, who as a NASA shuttle engineer worked on transitioning the orbiters from flight vehicles to museum displays. «We have nozzles (‘replica shuttle main engines’), but there are no engines and very little of the main propulsion system plumbing left in the aft compartment. NASA saved the engines and much of the plumbing for use on the Space Launch System.»
«There are also no auxiliary power units; all of those were scrapped since they had touched hypergolic propellants. So there is no hydraulic power on the ship. One fuel cell is missing and the other two are not hooked up. One water spray boiler is missing,» Jenkins said. «As she sits today, she has a replica airlock and a replica remote manipulator. There is no potty installed — its on display elsewhere in the California Science Center, and much of the middeck equipment is ground test or engineering units, not flight hardware.»
And then there is the not so small issue with sourcing the propulsion elements to complete the full space shuttle launch stack.
«Where did an external tank come from? ET-94, awaiting display with Endeavour, is the last and she is not really flightworthy without a lot of work. Same for the solid rocket boosters. Plus, SLC-6 has not been configured for the space shuttle since 1987, so how would you stack and launch a space shuttle?» Jenkins said.
Even if the hardware issues could be solved, there would still be another hurdle to get Endeavour off the ground.
«A major problem is that there is no software development environment left for the on board computers, so there is no way to update or load software on the ship. It would be extremely hard to reconstitute this capability,» said Jenkins.
And that only addresses what would be needed to return Endeavour fo flight, to say nothing of what Endeavour faces once launched in «Moonfall,» such as lifting off in a tidal wave and leaving Earth orbit for the moon. Ultimately, it is left to the audience to suspend their disbelief.
«If it’s a movie, people will believe quite a lot. But when you go too far, they say, ‘No, no, not like that.’» said Emmerich. «So it always has to have this believability.»
NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavour rolls through the streets of Los Angeles again in the new disaster film «Moonfall.» (Lionsgate)
The real move of the space shuttle Endeavour, as seen in this 2012 photo, inspired scenes in the new movie «Moonfall.» (collectSPACE)
NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) stands underneath the space shuttle Endeavour on the launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Station in «Moonfall.» (Lionsgate)
NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavour is retrieved from its display pavilion to be launched again in the new film «Moonfall.» (Lionsgate)
NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavour stands poised to lift off on Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in the new movie «Moonfall.» (Lionsgate)
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Space shuttle in popular culture
The first television appearance of an unseen The Twilight Zone episode titled Greetings from Earth «.
Vesmírná loď Stardust in the 1979 Disney comedy Simon , the title character (played by Airplane II: The Sequel in the early 1980s (call Mayflower One), in which it was used as a passenger liner between Earth and the Moon and experiences a traditional » The Cape that followed the lives of a group of fictional shuttle astronauts. The 1999 science fiction series farscape featured footage of an actual shuttle launch in its first episode, although the name of the craft shown was digitally altered to the fictional Collaroy. The 1983 TV movie Měsíční past , the main character commands the Shuttle Camelot on a satellite recovery mission, and a Shuttle equipped with a laser weapon battles with an alien spacecraft.
Columbia was seen in episode 19 («Wild Horses») of the 1998 anime series Walt Disney Pictures movie Jerry Bruckheimer revisited the shuttle theme later that year with the TV movie Max Q. The similarly themed movie Říjnové nebe , a Space Shuttle is shown launching at the end of the film, prior to the epilogues of all the characters.
V roce 2000 film Soviet The Core features the Space Shuttle Endeavour losing navigation systems and ends up crash landing in Los Angeles instead of at Edwards Air Force Base, overflying Dodger Stadium in the process. After the loss of shuttle Star Trek: Film paid tribute to the test vehicle Triple Changer Sky Lynx . There have been even more space shuttle Transformers in the Transformers: Armada however, the Transformers Victory a Cybertron (Japanese for Autobot) called Galaxy Shuttle also transforms into a Space Shuttle hence the name.
In another toy and cartoon franchise, G.I. Joe Team have their own space shuttle to carry on orbital missions, the space shuttle complex The West Wing featured Columbia in its season 1 final episode («What Kind of Day Has It Been», 2000). The shuttle was trapped in space, first because one of its payload bay doors failed to close, then due to a failure in its Orbital Maneuvering System when the door was closed manually. Atlantis was also mentioned in the episode as potentially mounting a rescue mission, but apparently this was unnecessary and Columbia landed safely. Late in the show’s sixth season, a super-secret The Greatest American Hero . The main character discovered an alien aboard that super-electrified him, and killed all crew aboard.
V televizním filmu Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later, Tony Nelson agrees, over Jeannie’s objections, to make one more space flight aboard the shuttle before retiring. However, something goes wrong, and the shuttle is on collision course with a meteoroid (that seems to be in orbit of Earth). It miraculously survives when Jeannie gets special dispensation to save Tony’s life, and for some reason, right after the meteoroid explodes, the shuttle’s OMS engines are functional again and it can brake to return to Earth.
In the two-part series finale of the television series Rodinné záležitosti , «Lost in Space», a fictional Space Shuttle, called Badatel (Note: There is a mockup shuttle called Steve Urkel and two astronauts into space to test Urkel’s Earth .
In the 1992 anime OAV series Fairly Oddparents episode «Cool Jobs,» Timmy’s Dad gets a job as an Mir , looks like a standard The Dark Side of the Moon , the crew of the Space Core One rendezvous with a Lily C.A.T. , a space shuttle is used for escape from the Saldes space cruiser. Despite taking place in the 23rd century, the shuttle is identical in appearance to the current fleet, possibly due to it being an ancient craft.
In games [ ]
In 1983 Activision released Space Shuttle: A Journey into Space for the Atari 2600 VCS game console system. Your goal once in orbit is to dock with a satellite one or more times before returning to Earth. The player needs to take care that their shuttle is properly configured for reentry to avoid burning up in the atmosphere or crashing upon landing. A player who managed to complete four dockings and return with at least 4,500 units of fuel would earn a Space Shuttle Pilot patch from Activision upon submitting a photo demonstrating said requirements were met. If a player was truly good enough, and completed six dockings and returned with at least 7,500 units of fuel, they would get a special message, and sending a photograph of that would allow them to receive a special Space Shuttle Commander patch.
The game was written by Steve Kitchen. The game was so complex for the early 8bit game console, that it required overlays to be placed over the console switches on the Atari 2600 which acted as additional controls in the game. The original Atari 2600 joystick only has one fire button and the additional control inputs for actions such as: Primary and backup engines activation and shutdown, opening and closing the cargo bay doors, raising/lowering the landing gear and activating the launch sequence were all required during the gameplay.
The 1995 Game Boy the space shuttle Columbia can be found in the space museum in Pewter City , though following the disaster, new edited versions of the game have removed the Columbia a nahradil ho objev . For the FireRed and LeafGreen versions, its just an ordinary space shuttle.
Also Space shuttle orbiters can be found in the video game for Nintendo NES «Space Shuttle Project.» The orbiters include; Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour, and Enterprise.
There is also a space shuttle in Williams Electronics produced a Space Shuttle Mission 2007 is a detailed stand-alone space shuttle mission simulator, allowing the player to carry out many of the shuttle’s actual missions.
In the Nintendo 64 game 007: Nightfire «, Xbox 360 and In print [ ]
V románu 1970 Saturnův trůn by Allen Drury a space shuttle makes a medical emergency flight. With a critically injured Walter Reed Medical Center for surgery. The novel implied that shuttle flights (c. 1979) were routine enough to land at commercial airports as well as take reporters to the space station. As the title would suggest manned Saturn V rockets were still in use for heavy payloads. This could mean the space shuttle of the novel lacked cargo capability.
David Onley wrote Shuttle: A Shattering Novel of Disaster in Space, a bestselling novel about space travel, published in 1981. It was nominated by the Periodical Distributors of Canada as book of the year. He was founding president of the Aerospace Heritage Foundation of Canada and was the lieutenant governor of Ontario, Canada.
In A Flag Full of Stars (Classic Star Trek #54) by Brad Ferguson, the Space Shuttle [1]
In Larry Niven and Footfall , all the shuttles except Endeavour did not exist at the time of writing) are used as spacefighters launched from a carrier spacecraft derived from StarCore within which parts of her personality merged with a cosmic force to become the all-powerful Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason centers on a terrorist attack on the shuttle Kennedy Space Center .
Storming Intrepid , a novel by Payne Harrison , concerns the Cuba uplinks false reentry procedures to facilitate a landing on the island. The Gettysburg transports a crew from a secret moon base and their research back to earth. The U.S. president orders the Shuttle to be shot down to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Soviets but in the last moment, the command center is taken over and communications reestablished. The crew guides the ship to a successful emergency landing at the Kennedy Space Center is out of reach.
In Encounter with Tiber , written by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes , the shuttle Endeavour crashes into the Atlantic off Spain after two main engines fail. The shuttle was taking the US Habitat Module to the Stephen Baxter ‘s novel objev is reconfigured using Apollo capsules and Endeavour to try and capture the crew of Columbia.
In Jerry Ahern ‘s Vznik , a stripped-down space shuttle is launched on a one-way suicide mission to disable an orbiting Soviet ‘doomsday bomb’.
The 1982 novel Larry Niven features a fictional space shuttle named [2] It was probably made in honor of the Return to Flight mission Avon , New York , 1997) is a thriller involving sabotage, politics, and a cover up in the In the amusement industry [ ]
Six Flags Great America operated a Philippines , there is a theme park in Enchanted Kingdom with a roller coaster ride named the Space Shuttle.
Other vehicles [ ]
A number of spacecraft are often referred to in science fiction as «shuttles», yet bear no resemblance to the current Space Shuttle orbiters. The starships . Beans. This began in the first season of TOS however and as such predates the space shuttle by more than ten years.
Reference [ ]
- ↑A Flag Full of Stars — Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki at www.memory-alpha.org
- ↑Little Dee by Chris Baldwin at www.littledee.net
This article uses Creative Commons licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).
The History of NASA and the Silver Screen
NASA’s began taking part in some aspects of film production in the 1990’s, and the organization can be found taking a pivotal role in many popular movies every since. Though space exploration and aeronautics had been common in science fiction and action movies for decades, NASA didn’t take much of an active role in the production of these films until relatively recently.
Since then, however, NASA has become a go-to resource for film and TV studios, taking part in blockbusters on the silver screen and many episodes on a variety of TV shows. It now participates in over 100 documentaries every year, and actively reaches out to studios producing space-oriented movies.
NASA loves helping and appearing in popular media like movies: it’s a great opportunity to share their missions and programs with the public, giving viewers a personal perspective of what life is like for an astronaut, pilot, flight control engineer, etc. The organization typically helps out by providing footage, letting crews shoot on site, or lending the mind of an expert.
NASA’s Role in Film Production
Many will remember the drama of Apollo 13 (1995), depicting the astronauts’ struggle against the (lack of) elements in a space shuttle running out of oxygen and power. NASA was obviously a big part of the plot, but this was also one of the first films to which NASA would lend a hand, helping director Ron Howard create a very technically accurate movie.
NASA provided technical expertise as well as access to a number of locations, even overseeing the actors as they simulated weightlessness for 25 seconds at a time in a KC-135 reduced gravity aircraft (the “vomit comet”). Howard ended up filming scenes for the movie in the aircraft, with the cameras rolling for just 25 seconds at a time.
Until they managed to adjust, it was quite difficult to keep everything organized in weightlessness, according to NASA test director Bob Williams. “The actors were floating, the cameras were floating, the cameramen were floating, the director was floating,” he said. “Actors and things kept drifting in and out of the shot. We thought, anybody watching this thing is going to get motion sickness.”
NASA has appeared in countless other feature films, and has taken some part in the production of quite a few of them. It lent spacesuits to be used in the film Armageddon (1998) by director Michael Bay, and let the crew film two space shuttle launches (though they weren’t consulted to make the movie scientifically accurate).
More recently, NASA was involved in another Bay flick, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011). The cast and crew filmed in four separate NASA locations: at Launch Pad 39A, where the Space Shuttle Discovery was docked; inside the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB); at an orbiter processing facility; and at the Space Station Processing Facility. Employees at the Kennedy Space Center were invited to be extras in the movie.
Occasionally the role of NASA is more limited, such as simply providing permission to use footage and their logo for the movie Gravity (2013).
But just last year, NASA upped it’s game for the blockbuster The Martian (2015), a film about an astronaut who struggling to survive after being stranded on Mars. The book on which the movie was based was a favorite at NASA for its scientific and technical accuracy, and the organization was more than happy to help the crew with plenty of advice about space travel and what living on Mars might be like.
NASA was very excited for The Martian because the film actually depicts a situation that NASA is striving for: sending humans to visit Mars, on a mission called “Our Journey to Mars.” The film has helped gain publicity for the mission, giving people a taste of the excitement of a manned mission to Mars. The discovery of liquid water, announced just before the release of the movie, attracted a great deal of attention as well.
NASA has continued to publicize and communicate the work they’re doing to reach Mars, relating it to the film in a section of their site called The Real Martians. You can visit the site to learn more about their journey to Mars or read about the “Nine Real NASA Technologies in ‘The Martian.’”
NASA has had an active role in movies and TV for over two decades now, helping studios create more realistic, accurate, and overall awe-inspiring films. Right now it’s taking part in the CineSpace 2016 short film competition, a challenge to filmmakers around the world to create works using or inspired by actual NASA imagery. Head on over to the challenge page to learn more about the requirements and how to enter!
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