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Entertainment

Two Takes on the Orbital Mechanics in "Gravity"

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 1, 2013
Filed under

Gravity Fact Check: What the Season’s Big Movie Gets Wrong, Jeff Kluger, Time
“… the physics of moving about in space–thrusts requiring counterthrusts, spins requiring counterspins, the hideous reality that if you do go spiraling off into the void your rotation never, never stops–are all simulated beautifully, scarily and accurately.”
NASA expert explains what the Gravity trailer gets wrong, Michael A. Interbartolo III, Blastr
“I am all for an entertaining movie, but when I go into a Michael Bay Armageddon movie I know to turn the brain off. This one tries to pass itself off as something more than that, but to me, it is the same flash and sizzle with a pretty lax understanding of orbital mechanics and spaceflight operations.”
Keith’s note: Michael Interbartolo actually does this space stuff for a living.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

10 responses to “Two Takes on the Orbital Mechanics in "Gravity"”

  1. stonemoma says:
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    Hollywood does a good job with some minor things to mention, but if you ever have chemistry involved in a film every time I see it they are off by thousands of miles.

  2. majormajor42 says:
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    “Why Gravity Director Alfonso Cuarón Will Never Make a Space Movie Again”
    http://www.wired.com/underw

    • savuporo says:
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      “It’s not about trying to figure out what is accurate and what is not.”

      Just sit down, and enjoy it. And appreciate the work that went into it. And appreciate space being an actual thing for the next 1:40 or 2:10 for the 99% of the people in audience that normally never think about it.

      • kcowing says:
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        Oh I am certain that it will be a feast for the eyes and plan to see it in the most whiz bang theater I can find. My point is that Time magazine needs to hire writers who are actually qualified to rate the accuracy. Kluger simply has no clue.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Even the much-loved “Apollo 13” was wrong in several instances: the opening sequence with Fred Haise and other astronauts watching Neil Armstrong step on to the Moon, in James Lovell’s family home, never happened. Both Haise and Lovell were in FACT in Mission Control. By comparison “Gravity” is fiction which happens to use real world spacecraft. That being the case, I expect those film-makers to utterly screw up on scientific accuracy for the sake of their plot. I’ll still go to watch it but a much better and compelling spaceflight survival story to tell on the big screen would be Michael Foale’s 5 months on board the Mir space station back in the summer of 1997.

  3. shuttlepuppy says:
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    Well, at least it isn’t “Space Camp,” the worst space movie ever!!

    • kcowing says:
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      Well, having worked with Challenger Center a lot, although the movie is lacking in many ways, it does give some kids some interesting ideas … I recall a made for TV movie back in the 70’s called “Stowaway to the Moon”. Improbable – but lots of space people my age remember it …

      • ASFalcon13 says:
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        I’ll echo what Keith said. I was 4 years old when SpaceCamp was released. A lot of folks will claim that Star Trek was one of their big inspirations for working in the space industry, but not me. “A bunch of kids get to fly in the Space Shuttle? Wow, I want to do that too!” Today, I’m a flight controller for several NASA interplanetary and astrophysics missions, and I still have dreams of becoming a NASA astronaut. The SpaceCamp film is a big reason for why I’m here, and I’m not ashamed of that fact at all.

  4. kcowing says:
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    You are right – if you used solar electric propulsion it would be straightforward to move Hubble around.