Geez, this new trailer for the new George Clooney/Sandra Bullock thriller Gravity is even more scary than the last one.
Is this really science fiction? The only real sci-fi element to it is the space shuttle, a now defunct program, is still in operation in this film and it involves a shuttle accident we know never occurred.
The major nit for this film is getting from the Hubble satellite to the International Space Station is an impossibility. They are in totally different orbits and the jet pack George Clooney uses would not have enough power to get him and Sandra Bullock from Hubble to the station.
It is also highly unlikely American astronauts would be trained to operate a Russian shuttle. Much less a Chinese one.
Hard to believe that someone of Bullock's temperament and habit of not securing her equipment would have been allowed on a shuttle mission. Seems to me she'd've been seen as too much a liability.
That said, this is my favorite movie this year. Gorgeous and gripping. I wish I'd seen it in IMAX or at least 3D. Maybe I can see again next payday. This time in IMAX. As wonderful as it in 2D, it must be outstanding in 3D. (If I do see again, it'll be the first film since STAR TREK VI I'd've see more than once on its first run at the theaters.)
Definitely a film I'd highly recommend.
The astronauts are stranded in Earth's orbit when a defunct satellite is blown up by the Chinese (I think it was), triggering Kessler's Syndrome. We're told the debris from Hubble and other satellites affected by KS will take 90 minutes to orbit the Earth. (The film is 97 minutes incidentally.) Strangely, the debris all flow in the same direction. I would have thought the destroyed satellite would have sent debris in several different directions, creating a crossfire effect at the end of 90 minutes where all the shrapnel meet up again at their point of origin.
What's really surprising is that in 90 minutes, travel from the wrecked Hubble telescope to the International Space Station to a Chinese space station is possible within that time frame. I would have thought, even granting all three objects being more or less on the same orbital plane, they'd've been too far apart to travel to that quickly. (The movie specifies, I believe that Hubble and ISS are 60 miles apart. Which doesn't seem likely to me.) Bullock and Clooney travel by jetpack to get to the ISS. You'd think that mode of travel, slow as it would be, would eat up the entire hour and a half itself, leaving very little time, if any, to get to the Chinese station.
The movie specifies, I believe that Hubble and ISS are 60 miles apart. Which doesn't seem likely to me.
It is not. The two satellites never come this close. In reality, their orbits are so different that even the space shuttle could not rendez-vous with both on the same mission. That was the reason all servicing visits to the Hubble had been cancelled after the Columbia disaster. NASA had decreed that the shuttle should always be in a position to reach the ISS in case of major malfunction. That was later recinded to allow one last servicing mission. Astronauts having only jetpacks could never reach the ISS from the Hubble.
Outside of the obvious orbital mechanics issues...
One does not wear just a tank an bike shorts under a spacesuit, as Stone did. As we all found out from the infamous Lisa Nowak incident, one also wears diapers. In addition, I don't know if it's true for the shuttle suits, but the Apollo A7L suit also had a cooling undergarment with water cooling.
Highly telegraphed scene.... (potential spoiler alert)
next day spoiler alert bait...
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When Stone took the fire extinguisher into the Soyuz it was obvious what it would later be used for.
Further nitpicking...
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Why would a specialist on a Hubble service mission be trained on a Soyuz simulator? They were not going to be anywhere near a Soyuz. I can see someone being sent to the ISS getting such training, but not a Hubble mission.
next day spoiler alert bait...
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In addition, the entire movie's premise is an ICBN. Yes, LEO is crowded, but only in a relative sense. The "debris cascade" is not really possible.
Also, the re-entry of Tian'gong pretty much means that the Shenzou would have burned up, even with the detachment... at least given where it was at.
Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer)'s review:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie_review_gravity.html
One thing that bothered me when I saw the film and maybe Scott or Francois could tell me if I'm right, but at one time, anyway, the air on space vehicles was pure oxygen. So when the fire started on the ISS, shouldn't the air itself have caught on fire? Not just the station itself? Or have they added something else to the ships' air supply to keep them from being so flammable?
Does Stone speak Russian? If not, how could reading the Russian manual help her with running the Soyuz shuttle?
US spacecraft through Apollo used 100% O2 at 5PSI.
Russian spacecraft used standard nitrogen/oxygen (possibly at a lower pressure?).
With the shuttle, the US also switched over to Nitrogen/Oxygen. I believe ISS uses the standard mix as well.
The Soyuz was there as the escape vehicle for the ISS. I assume that they had documentation in both Russian and English.
Yeah, ISS uses 80/20 Nitrogen/Oxygen (Earth-normal) at 14.7 psi. Essentially Earth normal atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS#Atmosphere
And that article indicates that there is some sort of fire suppression system, but I couldn't find anything on it.
NASA indicates that US modules use manual CO2 extinguishers, while Russian modules use water-based foam devices.
Nasa.gov is down, so Google Cache.
I stand corrected. The Bad Astronomer says that cascade is possible. However, the cascading debris is subject to the usual Orbital Mechanics nit. It wouldn't affect the shuttle at Hubble altitude.
So when the fire started on the ISS, shouldn't the air itself have caught on fire?
Pure oxygen by itself is not flammable. It's things in presence of a pure oxygen atmosphere that burn like crazy. That's what killed the Appolo 1 crew.
Something else, fire in microgravity behaves very differently from how it does on Earth. Because there is no gravity, there is no convection, and the gases produced by combustion stay close to the flame and tend to smother it.
Thanks for the info, guys!
It is also highly unlikely American astronauts would be trained to operate a Russian shuttle.
Does Stone speak Russian? If not, how could reading the Russian manual help her with running the Soyuz shuttle?
Currently, the Soyuz is the only means for humans to get to the ISS - everyone going up is trained for a particular role on board the Soyuz. Stone would probably not have been trained to land it, but would have knowledge of the various systems. Training is in Russian, so I suppose that includes reading the manuals.
Why would a specialist on a Hubble service mission be trained on a Soyuz simulator? They were not going to be anywhere near a Soyuz. I can see someone being sent to the ISS getting such training, but not a Hubble mission.
Indeed. Stone would probably have had some training in Space Shuttle operations, but not in Soyuz.
Going back to Benn's first post.
I'd argue that yes, it's science fiction, given the what-if setting. But, we've been hammered with space opera and FX and SciFi (as opposed to SF) so much, that that the what SciFi is supposed to do is lost.
Yes, the FX are gorgeous. But, they're really secondary to the story... WHICH IS WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. The story is supposed to tell us something about ourselves. And Cuaron succeeded beautifully.
Yes, we all had fun with the obvious orbital mechanics nits. But the story itself allows us to overlook them.
From Benn, again:
quote:Strangely, the debris all flow in the same direction. I would have thought the destroyed satellite would have sent debris in several different directions, creating a crossfire effect at the end of 90 minutes where all the shrapnel meet up again at their point of origin.
The film is 97 minutes incidentally.
The version that's now playing on HBO is 91 minutes; 84 if you don't include the end credits.
Arriving at the ISS, Stone and Kowalski barely manage to grab onto something and avoid drifting away in space. Stone's feet get entangled in the deployed Soyuz parachute, and Kowalski is tethered to her. At that point, it should be easy for her to pull him back and for the both of them to enter the station, but Kowalski is being pulled away from her and he has to unhook the tether and let himself drift away to avoid pulling her with him. The thing is, there is nothing that could possibly be pulling at Kowalski with so much force that Stone couldn't pull him back. They are both in free fall, the ISS is not spinning so there is no centrifugal force acting on them, and Kowalski's MMU is out of fuel, so there is no reason for him to be pulled away, except to create drama and make him sacrifice himself to save her.
When they arrive at the ISS, they also see that the crew has evacuated in the other Soyuz capsule. Those capsules are designed to carry three people, and the ISS has a crew of six. I don't think you can evacuate all of them in just one soyuz capsule.
Tried this movie, but couldn't get into it.