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We Get It Neil Tyson: You Hated "Gravity" (Update)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 7, 2013
Filed under ,

Keith’s note: Clearly Dr. Tyson is unaware of the cross training and multiple skills possessed by NASA astronauts. Astronaut Scott Parazynski did a solar array repair on STS-120. He’s an MD. John Grunsfeld did a number of arduous Hubble EVAs involving hardware repairs – no astronomy. He’s an astronomer. Sally Ride (a physicist) was a robotic arm expert as was elementary school teacher Barbara Morgan. Rick Linnehan is a veterinarian and did a Hubble repair EVA (with Grunsfled the astronomer). With one exception, every human who has walked on the Moon doing geology was not a geologist. And so on. There are endless examples of people in the astronaut office trained in one area becoming experts in others. That’s why they were selected in the first place. But Tyson did not bother to do even superficial research before Tweeting. So much for accuracy.
If you read Tyson’s tweets you’ll see that he clearly did not like “Gravity” – a movie that is breaking box office records (a movie that actual astronauts seem to really like). This is rather odd for someone (Tyson) who complains about the way that space exploration is portrayed to the public. The public is speaking with their wallets. He’s not listening.
Alas, it will be interesting to see what nitpicking is done when the reboot of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” comes out – with Tyson as the host. I am certain he’ll have music and sound effects during scenes depicting events that occur in space – i.e. sound in a vacuum – even though its totally inaccurate from a technical perspective.
Keith’s note: Around 1:00 am EDT Tyson tweeted: “My Tweets hardly ever convey opinion. Mostly perspectives on the world. But if you must know, I enjoyed #Gravity very much.” Contrary to his claim, his tweets regularly contain opinion. Usually, that is why his tweets are interesting – unless he’s wrong, that is.
‘Gravity’: Panel of astro-experts on the science behind the film, Entertainment Weekly
“Would she, a medical doctor, have been needed for a spacewalk in the first place?
Leroy Chiao: It’s certainly plausible. It’s not at all uncommon for medical doctors of different backgrounds to be trained for a spacewalk, because if you show an aptitude for that, then it doesn’t matter what your background is, whether you’re an engineer like me or a medical doctor like some of my colleagues. You would be trained to do spacewalks.”

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

34 responses to “We Get It Neil Tyson: You Hated "Gravity" (Update)”

  1. Tritium3H says:
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    Umm…Keith, not to nit-pick, but wasn’t Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt a Geologist by degree (Ph.D)?

  2. Tritium3H says:
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    Oops, never mind…I missed your preface “With one exception…”. Sorry, mate.

    • kcowing says:
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      No one will ever forget Jack!

      • Steve Pemberton says:
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        Schmitt should be known as the first geologist on the Moon. Unfortunately forty years later his twenty-two hours of vital field work is still the only exploration of the Moon that has been done by a geologist.

  3. Spacetech says:
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    Wow A laughable comment from a really smart guy.
    Obviously NDT doesn’t seem to know very much about our very own American astronauts as many have medical degrees such as Story Musgrave who flew on STS-61 and performed a major part of the first Hubble Space Telescope repair IN space.

    • kcowing says:
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      I did not mention Story Musgrave because he has done things no normal human – or astronaut – could do 😉

  4. Paul451 says:
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    NdT then may have been inspired by Sagan as a kid. But this makes me think that NdT now would be like those in the scientific community who shunned and mocked Sagan for trying to popularise science.

  5. met1021 says:
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    Neil has been providing commentary on “Astrophysics” for years on TV news shows with the by-line, “Astrophysicist,” underneath his name. He has made lots of money profiting from that title. Does anybody care to examine his publication record on NASA/ADS?

  6. Engineer_in_Houston says:
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    Sometimes you just need to leave your engineer hat at the entrance to the theater. I feel bad for those who can’t suspend disbelief for a little while and just enjoy a well-told (and well-acted) story.

  7. The Tinfoil Tricorn says:
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    Couldn’t figure a better way to say Gravity Makes the Risk in Space Flight seem insurmountable and stupid in public eyes.

    Recently reality themed space movies have one common theme, don’t go to space, if you do you’ll probably die there, and they might or might not call you a hero posthumously.

    Of course you can stay on earth, and of course, die much more slowly, but you’re still dying!

  8. Rajan Patel says:
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    “a movie that is breaking box office records”

    What relevance does this have? You know what other movie broke box office records? That Michael Bay masterpiece, Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

  9. ASFalcon13 says:
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    Actually, as it turned out, he didn’t hate Gravity…

    “My Tweets hardly ever convey opinion. Mostly perspectives on the world. But if you must know, I enjoyed #Gravity very much.”

  10. chrisfoster says:
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    “Perspectives on the world” – another word for an opinion

  11. Gary Miles says:
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    Btw, Keith, Neil deGrasse Tyson, also tweeted that he enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed the movie as well, but like Dr. Tyson I recognized many of the improbabilities of the plot. He is simply pointing them out.

  12. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    The answer to NdGT’s lame question was clearly stated in the dialog between Bullock and Clooney early in the spacewalk. I have to paraphrase here, but Clooney asks Bullock why a doctor is up here installing something on Hubble. Bullock replies that she originally developed the thing as a medical sensor and it was adapted for spaceflight. That inferred it requires her present to install-integrate- calibrate the thing or something, since she invented it.

    I would suggest to NdGT that if he has any spare time from his busy grandstanding schedule that he read thru the extensive biographies of NASA astronauts at the NASA website, when it comes back on line. Our cadre of Shuttle-era astronaut mission specialists have an incredibly varied academic career roster. PhD’s and MD’s abound. The shuttle pilots and shuttle commanders – the Clooneys- were mostly military fighter jet jocks who crosstrained.

  13. Anonymous says:
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    He made some other interesting comments about Gravity, but apparently you cherry-picked his tweets for your article.

  14. Vladislaw says:
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    I have not seen it yet, but a friend said sandra’s tears defy gravity…?

  15. Ben Russell-Gough says:
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    I freely admit to having to grit my teeth and not start preaching about continuity and technology errors when I’m watching the TV or a movie. Generally I persevere because I know that no-one likes a nit-picker..

  16. Tony Reaves says:
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    Wait, there is no sound in space? Damn you,
    every Hollywood movie about space….ever.

  17. VLaszlo says:
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    That’s a good question. It’s a bit of a bummer to see all of manned spaceflight de-orbited by the end of the film, and there’s little in the film to suggest it’s worth rebuilding. Space is essentially reduced to a deadly opponent in the story, and there’s almost nothing offered to support a continued vision of space.

    That said, the visceral nature of the film, the kinetic nature of it calls to the adventurers in us, and in an unspoken way draws us towards wanting more of what we’re given.

    Perhaps that way lies the real value of the film, and it’s success suggests that the public is still hungry for experiences that lie beyond the terrestrial.

  18. Anonymous says:
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    If you hate this movie, then you have never faced tragedy in your own life. You have never come face to face with death.

  19. Gene DiGennaro says:
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    NdGT should meet Story Musgrave MD aka “Mr. EVA”

  20. Bret says:
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    All these comments are weird. How can you say that “Gravity” is
    believable and that NASA would send someone like the Sandra Bullock character on a space walk to work on the Hubble Space telescope? She’s a medical doctor who spends most of her time in her basement lab. And you compare her to Story Musgrave?

    Musgrave was in the U.S. Marine Corps, served as an aviation electrician and instrument technician, and as an aircraft crew chief. He has flown over 17,700 hours in 160 different types of civilian and military aircraft, including 7,500 hours in jet aircraft. He has earned FAA ratings for instructor, instrument instructor, and airline transport pilot. He’s also made over 800 parachute free falls — including over 100 experimental free-fall descents involved with the study of human aerodynamics.

    You really believe the Sandra Bullock character with only 6 months of NASA training — a character who has never piloted ANYTHING and gets nauseous and almost vomits in her space suit –, is similar to Musgrave? Just because a NASA astronaut happens to have a medical degree doesn’t mean the movie “Gravity,” or the character Bullock plays, is at all believable. Are you guys serious?

    You owe Tyson an apology.

    • Konstantinos says:
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      Also, S. Musgrave holds degrees in mathematics, statistics, computer pogramming, chemstry and even literature. Certainly not your common MD. Besides that, he was a pilot about a decade before he got his medical diploma.