#Gravity movie movie#

The technology needed to clean up your own dead satellites is pretty much identical to what it would take to shoot down another country’s very much alive ones, and China was no doubt signaling that it had the wherewithal. shot down one of its own dead satellites-ostensibly to prevent it from spinning out of control, but probably as a military riposte to China, which had pulled off a similar bit of cosmic marksmanship the year before. What’s more, a satellite-demolishing chain reaction would never happen in the first place. ( PHOTOS: Space Shuttle Endeavour Journeys Through Los Angeles) Shuttles fly at that high inclination when they’re visiting the ISS, but they wouldn’t be anywhere remotely in the neighborhood if they were servicing Hubble. But the ISS orbits at 51.6º-a concession to the Russians when we built the station, since their Soyuz spacecraft regularly ferry crews up and down. After the shuttle is destroyed, the surviving astronauts seek refuge on the International Space Station, which is conveniently located nearby. Junk from a Russian pigeon-shoot might cross the shuttle’s orbit on some of its passes, but it would not happen right away-and certainly not every hour and a half.

Russian satellites, however, orbit at higher inclinations, for the same reason-to keep them as close as possible to the Motherland.

The shuttle, in most cases, stays at that angle too. So, where to begin?įirst of all, the Hubble orbits at an inclination of 28.5º, which maximizes the time it spends passing over the American mainland on its various trips around the planet. The shuttle gets clobbered, most of the astronauts die, something less than hilarity ensues. An American space shuttle is in orbit on a Hubble Telescope repair mission at the time, and not only does the satellite disaster plunge the crew into radio blackout, it also puts them directly in the path of a high-speed swarm of space junk that whips around the planet every 90 minutes. The triggering incident in Gravity-equivalent to the exploding oxygen tank in Apollo 13-occurs when Russia launches a missile to destroy one of its own satellites, accidentally creating a chain reaction that demolishes most of the communications satellites orbiting the planet. Spoilers, by the way, lurk here like satellite debris, so proceed with caution if you haven’t yet seen the movie.

#Gravity movie movie#

( MORE: Space Race 2013: Who’s Up, Who’s Down, Who’s Going Nowhere)Īll the same, science is science and facts are facts and when a movie purports to traffic in both, it’s only fair to point out the blunders-none of which were howlers in this case, but at least some of which could (and should) have been avoided. (Disclosure: I wrote the book on which Apollo 13 was based and served as a consultant on the movie.) Gravity is a space disaster and survival movie that never happened in real life-though in smaller and surely less cinematic ways it could. What’s more, Gravity, which does get much more right than it gets wrong, is not Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff-movies that had to hew close to history because they were based on real events.

It’s really beside the point to mention any scientific inaccuracies in Gravity since the movie is so gripping, so jaw-dropping, so visually, gobsmackingly good that it seems churlish to pay attention to much else.

Doesn’t matter if you’re Bullock, Penelope Cruz or Nicole Kidman, you would not be looking your best. She’d also be wearing an adult diaper and would be wringing with sweat. (91 m) of fashionable plastic tubing running through it. In truth, what an astronaut returning from what NASA calls extavehicular activity (EVA) would have on under her pressure suit would be what’s known as a Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, a full-body, crazily complex bit of space finery that has about 300 ft. And so, in the new-and extraordinary-movie Gravity, when Sandra Bullock comes inside after a spacewalk, she shucks her pressure suit and floats about in a crop-top and boxer briefs, perfectly toned, perfectly lovely, zero-g eye candy. Tall, short, lumpy, lithe-as long as you’re fit and fall within a reasonable height and weight range, you clear at least one simple hurdle to becoming an astronaut. Follow doesn’t care if you have a hot body or not.