The following is from my Xanga site AeroGo, which gives helpful info to students and others interested in going into the aerospace field:
I don't try too hard to turn my kids into space cadets, but when this film came out I took all but the youngest to go see it, way down at Moody Gardens in Galveston.
For those familiar with Gerard O'Neill's concepts for space colonies, much of it will be familiar, but the film is well-scripted and the graphics are great, especially in 3D if you can find it. Apparently a lot of the graphics were from veteran space artist Pat Rawlings, and quite good, but my favorite is a scene of Saturn and rings, from its moon Enceladus, created by Fujitsu. I wonder if there's a poster of that somewhere.
There's a dramatic part of the film where the hero lands on a comet, which in 3-D looks pretty harrowing, with chunks of ice and snow floating all over and hitting everything. Of course, with the results from the recent Deep Impact mission, scientists now think comets may be more like puffballs or "dirty dustballs" or even "brittle sponges" than "dirty snowballs" with large ice chunks, though water and organic molecules were found on Tempel I. Nevertheless, the film was a huge step forward for promoting space awareness; I'm just sad to say there's still nothing else like it.
L5 - First City in Space
I first saw L5 at the IMAX in 3D. It is set in the late 21st century and is seen through the eyes of a young girl who has always lived in the city in space. She has never been to earth except in a virtual sense. It is interesting in that the scenario is quite possible and shows most of the technologies we might expect to see in a space city. The story centres around the need to find more water and maintain the supply indefinitely. It is like a documentary with a bit of drama.
juvenile
Although efforts were made to produce this, it should have clearly been stated by marketing that this was for children 12y and under. As andult and scinetist myself i was not amused being sold to (duped) in this fashion.
Amazon's selection engine based on mutual interests need finetuning!
Think of this BBC two-part TV special as Walking with Planets. One of the makers of the excellent Walking with... dinosaur programs looks forward--into the future--and upward--into space--for another presentation of story-driven science. This fake documentary follows an international crew of five on an extraordinary six-year spaceflight. We hear from Mission Control and view footage of the astronauts in training along with the flight photography and "TV broadcasts" (perfect for quickly explaining facts via Q&As). The flight is beyond ambitious: landing on Venus, Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, the rings of Saturn, an asteroid, and the far-off reaches of Pluto. Certainly, no real space agency would sign off on such a mission, but the dramatics work thanks to the deft handling by... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Joe Ahearne DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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As a primer on up-to-date scientific theory about the nature of the universe and our place in it, Cosmic Voyage is visually sumptuous and just plain fun. Shot in the mind-blowing IMAX process, this combined live-action and computer-generated production has (even in video format) an immensity of scope befitting its grand subject. Beginning, lyrically if unexpectedly, in Italy's magnificent Venice, Cosmic Voyage draws inspiration from airborne perspectives on the city's famed network of canals and streets, leading to further appreciations of dense systems in nature. From the subnuclear to the physical limits of the known universe, Cosmic Voyage explores a resonance between all things while making sense of such inscrutable phenomena as the birth of stars and planets,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Morgan Freeman Director(s): Bayley Silleck DVD Release Date: Released the 30 April 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This is an awe-inspiring film in the literal sense: it starts out by advising the viewer that none of the scenes of the sun are computer-generated -- they are all actual photographs -- and awesome they are. It is hard to wrap one's mind around the magnitude of these solar events. The explanations of how solar storms impact our planet, and the discussion of how earlier cultures understood and worshipped the sun are fascinating, but the killer images of the aurora borealis, Machu Picchu, and the sun itself are what make this film a must-see. More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Weiley DVD Release Date: Released the 02 April 2002 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks
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