Ad Astra Makes Visits With NASA
Ad Astra: A Conversation with Brad Pitt, James Gray and NASA Officials
“Join us for a special evening with Brad Pitt as he discusses his new film Ad Astra. He will be joined by writer and director James Gray as well as NASA officials, Dr. Sarah Noble and Lindsay Aitchison. Ad Astra is a science fiction, adventure film that was created with the intention of presenting “the most realistic depiction of space travel that’s been put in a movie” to date. The filmmakers worked with experts to fully capture and convey the dynamism and power of the astronaut experience in outer space. The conversation will be moderated by Washington Post Film Critic Ann Hornaday.”
Brad Pitt to Speak with NASA Astronaut on Space Station about Artemis Program
“Pitt’s Earth-to-space call will air live at 11:35 a.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 16 on NASA Television and the agency’s website. … “We reviewed a script of Ad Astra early in production,” said Bert Ulrich, the agency’s liaison for film and TV collaborations at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Although there was no NASA storyline, we provided some of the exciting images and footage for the film especially of the Moon and Mars. Sci-fi films like Ad Astra, the Martian, Interstellar, and Gravity take movie audiences out of this world incorporating some of NASA’s most inspirational photography and footage.”
From the previews it looks like it shows Brad Pitt falling off of some structure in space, which wouldn’t be very realistic. I guess it’s possible it’s a very tall structure that’s not in orbit.
One review made it sound like an Earth-to-orbit tether. You could fall off one of those. (What was the line from Brin’s _Sundiver_? “Watch out for the first step!” or something like that.)
Space Elevator, I presume.
But you wouldn’t ‘fall off’ if you are in space – you’d simply drift off if you let go of the structure, especially if you gave yourself a push. So it would have to be at very high altitude (and the pressure suit he was wearing suggested that was the case). But the actual structure looked to complex for such an altitude. Space Elevators tend to be portrayed as a carbon nanotube ribbon that is very thin, with a climber attached – not a tall tower.
I guess if you assume it was some kind of space elevator, he didn’t appear to be high enough to be at orbital velocity if the structure was attached to some fixed point on earth. He’d need to be at geosynchronous altitude to be in orbit and float away.
I always thought that the best ending for the movie Gravity would have been if they had of kept running the cameras for another few moments as Sandra Bullock climbs out of the water, to show the group of mounted apes riding over the crest of the hill to greet her…
Well, almost anything would have improved _Gravity_, so why not. At least that ending would added something funny and included a fair cult culture in joke.
I just watched Ad Astra. I liked it. The first scene is Major McBride (Brad Pitt) falling off the International Space Antenna. It is a tall tower that is technically in space, I guess. But it is anchored on the ground, so it is not in orbit. I guess, at the top of the tower, you only have angular velocity from rotation of the Earth. The one thing I did not like… too much Brad Pitt talking and pondering the meaning of life, etc. The best parts are Moon and Mars settlements, with the final destination is Neptune. Nice uniforms for the US Space Command. The Major travels “commercial” to the Moon to keep his mission secret… and we get to see the trip to the Moon, including the sign, Welcome to the Moon, with airport -like facilities. Pretty neat visuals. I’ll watch it again with my lady, so I can take it all in.