Silent Running on the International Space Station
Silent Running on the International Space Station (with pictures and video)
Keith’s note: I was looking at Scott Kelly’s Flickr page today and was immediately struck by several photos that were hauntingly familiar. More flower pictures. I am a biologist and spent a lot of time studying (and teaching about) plants in college and grad school so I like to look at things like this. In particular the close-up, high resolution pictures of his zinnias really caught my attention. Then I realized why this looked so familiar. “Silent Running” – a cult classic film released in 1972. I first saw the when I was at the impressionable age of 16 and it has been stuck in my head ever since. Decades later it inspired me to build a spacecraft-inspired green house on a remote arctic island. Look at these two pictures – and then watch the opening of the film. Scott Kelly was most channeling his inner Freeman Lowell.
Will ISS have robots named Huey, Dewey, and Louie? It wasn’t Lucas who invented cute little robots. What is interesting is where Bruce Dern (excellent portrayal of fanatical and intense natural foods zealot) preparing vegetable dish, other crew members comment, “do you have to eat that, it stinks.” Bruce replies (and nearly huffing and puffing with the veins in his neck expanding), “this has taste! it has texture! not that crap rest of you are eating!” (or something like that). I was thinking few years ago, a lady about 80 commented that food these days taste more bland than it did back in the days. Another friend last month commented food has more taste in Europe than it does here in US. Getting back to ISS, I heard the first thing crews look for in the Progress vehicles are fresh fruits and vegetables.
And later in movie where plants in the forest are dying and Freeman can’t figure it out until talking with “mission control” who says, “hard to find you being so far from the Sun.” And then there’s that “light bulb above the head” moment when Freeman gets it that the plants are not getting enough light. I wonder if biologists overlook something as simple as that in real life.
he was an engineer …..
he may have been distracted after murdering the rest of the crew