Would this be a good idea for a space movie?

[fredinno]

Would the Columbia Rescue Mission ([URL]http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/[/URL]) be a good idea for a space disaster movie (kind of like Apollo 13)? Someone on the forums had told me that this was distatseful, and was too recent to be a good idea. Edited November 18, 2015 by fredinno

[CommanderSpock]

Yes, I believe so.

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But, you would have to be very true to the story.

[Bill Phil]

It's a gray area. I think it's too soon, though.

[CommanderSpock]

If close to 13 years is too soon, then it may never be time. 13 years is long enough, in my opinion.

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='CommanderSpock']If close to 13 years is too soon, then it may never be time. 13 years is long enough, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]

It's too soon. Wait ~30 years. Like Apollo 13.

A lot of people are probably going to be upset. Wait till they're much older, and more okay, or when they're dead...

It will be the right time, but it takes a while. I don't want to see a movie about it because it would be way too sad for me.

[pTrevTrevs]

It would be a good idea so long as the story was fictitious. I think if they named the shuttle [I]Columbuia[/I] and gave the crew members in the movie the same names as those on STS 107, it would be a little in bad taste, but if they made ileverything fictional it would be ok.

In Gravity, the shuttle was given a fake name, and all the characters were fictional, and it was ok.

Don't get the wrong idea though, I'm not saying Gravity is a good movie...

[Robotengineer]

[quote name='Bill Phil']It's a gray area. I think it's too soon, though.[/QUOTE]

It's never too soon to make a movie of a real life disaster! Just ask Michael Bay! /angry sarcasm

IMO, it would be distasteful. However the definition distasteful seems to have been sliding as of late.

[Tourist]

You have to exercise the greatest of care when handling real life disasters for entertainment purposes, particularly if relatives, colleagues or close friends may still be alive. Generally you can only do it tastefully if you take a documentary, or "based on a true story" approach. In other words, a dramatic depiction of the actual event, or related events.

An alternative fiction approach would be problematic, as it may trigger the grief of living relatives by positing a situation whereby the tragedy never occurred, and their loved ones may still be alive. That's not to say that a doco, or a dramatic re-enactment may not also trigger their grief, it probably would, but these seem clothed in veneer respectability because of its "educational value", and the public interest in the "truth" of the history of these events. But of course its a very thin, grey line.

As an example Apollo 13 was fine, because it took the "based on a true events" approach of dramatization of real life events, and touched the Apollo 1 tragedy with the very respectfully and not gratuitously. In Apollo 13 it serves to depict the real dangers of space travel and depict, realistically what the crew and family may have feared during the events.

Changing the names would also not do it, particularly if everybody knows what the story is really about.

You would be better off with a purely fictional story, still sets in space, which picks up on the themes, tension and drama of the real event, but otherwise is not recognizable as a direct analog.

Long story short. Probably bad taste, unless done as a documentary discussing possible rescues in a purely education way.. ie this is the capabilities NASA had, this is how they worked, this is why they were not deployed. Edited November 18, 2015 by Tourist

[boxley]

I think the problem isn't the timing but whats happened, I mean, the crew was lost and making a movie of a rescue mission saving them would just be confusing and bordering on distasteful as its like "this is how nasa could have not killed 7 people lets rub it in!". now I don't honestly think that but some people would and I cant honestly blame them for it. if the mission had been carried out and successful the It could be interesting, but as it is, it just feels weird and revisionist to make such a movie.


like imagine if they made a movie about the titanic where a the last moment a seamonster came up and saved everyone, that would just be a weird revised twist to a existing historical event,

[Bill Phil]

Also, it might make NASA IRL look bad... Perhaps making their situation very bad, publicly, at least.

[fredinno]

[quote name='Bill Phil']It's too soon. Wait ~30 years. Like Apollo 13.

A lot of people are probably going to be upset. Wait till they're much older, and more okay, or when they're dead...

It will be the right time, but it takes a while. I don't want to see a movie about it because it would be way too sad for me.[/QUOTE]
But the astronauts would survive at the end...

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='fredinno']But the astronauts would survive at the end...[/QUOTE]

And? It's loose ground. They didn't survive in real life.

Plus it would remind me, and others, of Columbia, and then it might even act as somewhat of an insult to NASA, or at least someone might take it as such, even if it's unintended. Saying that NASA could have saved them is basically saying that NASA failed... so someone might take it the wrong way like that.

[fredinno]

[quote name='boxley']I think the problem isn't the timing but whats happened, I mean, the crew was lost and making a movie of a rescue mission saving them would just be confusing and bordering on distasteful as its like "this is how nasa could have not killed 7 people lets rub it in!". now I don't honestly think that but some people would and I cant honestly blame them for it. if the mission had been carried out and successful the It could be interesting, but as it is, it just feels weird and revisionist to make such a movie.


like imagine if they made a movie about the titanic where a the last moment a seamonster came up and saved everyone, that would just be a weird revised twist to a existing historical event,[/QUOTE]
The difference is that seamonsters are implausible. A Columbia Resuce mission would have been plausible, if NASA had been more concered of the falling foam on the ET.

[Bill Phil]

[quote name='fredinno']The difference is that seamonsters are implausible. A Columbia Resuce mission would have been plausible, if NASA had been more concered of the falling foam on the ET.[/QUOTE]

They knew nothing could really be done. It was at the incorrect inclination for Kazakhstan. No rocket that could rescue was available, no spacecraft to lengthen their time on orbit... It was impossible. Suggesting to the general public that it could have been done might paint, might, paint IRL NASA in a bad light.

[vger]

Better to just make a film about a theoretical near-disaster that never happened, but provide a solution for rescuing the crew.

Also, it's interesting to remember that other shuttles have survived with ugly holes in their shielding. The crew of STS-27 saw the damage before re-entry and were absolutely convinced they were going to die. NASA thought they were over-reacting and said not to worry about it. After examining the shuttle on the ground, nobody could believe that it didn't blow apart on re-entry. Edited November 18, 2015 by vger

[razark]

[quote name='fredinno']But the astronauts would survive at the end...[/QUOTE]
But they didn't. Let them rest in peace.


[quote name='fredinno']The difference is that seamonsters are implausible. A Columbia Resuce mission would have been plausible, if NASA had been more concered of the falling foam on the ET.[/QUOTE]
A rescue mission would [i]never[/i] have happened. It's not plausible in the least.

Yes. [i]IF[/i] they had known the foam had caused damage, [i]IF[/i] they had known the extent of the damage, [i]if if if if...[/i]
They still didn't know what caused the foam shedding. They didn't know what would have happened on another launch. The risk to the rescue crew/vehicle would have outweighed the possibility of rescue. Aside from the foam issue, rushing an orbiter through processing would have opened up a lot of potential for someone doing something wrong, skipping critical checks, and so on. Add to that a crew that's not fully trained, a ground crew unprepared, and everyone under extreme pressure, etc.
There was zero chance of launching a rescue.

As my father said: "If it was the foam strike that caused the loss, the crew was dead on launch. It just took them 16 days to die."

[problemecium]

...Your father's words ring of a rather tragic facet of the contemporary space industry. We really need more and better space infrastructure, and I don't mean more comms satellites (gah, we have SO many of those). I mean stuff like a small fleet of rescue ships docked to a station like a lot of us set up early on in KSP careers, so that when the slightest thing goes wrong it doesn't invariably mean the crew is doomed. Or something like a space tug to grab the shuttle and bring it to the ISS so the crew can hang out there for a few weeks while a proper resupply and retrieval mission is done (even if the STS is abandoned, we could still do something about the people).

Le sigh.

On the bright side, SpaceX's Dragon v2 has landing jets AND parachutes, just in case. That's something I can get behind. But that's a topic for another thread.

[r4pt0r]

I dont believe in "too soon". People are far too over sensitive. Make an engaging movie and people will enjoy it.


Jeez its only been 3 years and they already have a "Bengazi" movie coming out.

The first Pearl Harbor movie came out within two years of that attack.

Time moves on, and so do people.

[Tw1]

I don't think so. It's not about the time, it's still a bit of an insult to those people's memory. In the end, they didn't make it, Columbia burnt up, and it was a disaster.

Sure, the storyline has potential, with pressure, drama, hard choices to be made (like, if one of the crew decided to pull a Laurence Oats),an extreme amount of risk to play out on. (Possibly to much. Some of the details in that strategy are really pushing the limits, it seems.)
But it just not something you should do. It would be like a film about September eleven where the building was full of parachutes and jetpacks, or strong enough to not fall down. Or where someone shot it down first. It would be a huge denial of reality.

If you were going to do a TV show about it, it would be best as a serious, plot free documentary. Or, as inspiration for a fictitious event, so far removed that it's basically unrecognisable.

[Nibb31]

It would be in bad taste. So no, not a good idea.

[KerbMav]

[quote name='r4pt0r']I dont believe in "too soon". People are far too over sensitive. Make an engaging movie and people will enjoy it.


Jeez its only been 3 years and they already have a "Bengazi" movie coming out.

The first Pearl Harbor movie came out within two years of that attack.

Time moves on, and so do people.[/QUOTE]

I 50% agree.
The problem is not the [I]to soon[/I] - it is that this would basically be a movie in which Pearl Harbor gets prevented, nothing gets dropped on Hiroshima, noone dies 1972 in the Olympic Village ...

[TheSaint]

I lost my first wife to cancer seventeen years ago. Two nights after she died I had a dream. I dreamed that her mother (her parents were staying with me at the time) came and woke me up in bed and told me that the hospital called and told her that it was all a big mistake, that she had woken up in the morgue and that she was okay. I dreamed that I got up and got dressed and we all drove to the hospital and there she was, safe and sound in her hospital bed. She told us how weird it was waking up in the morgue, and how frightening it had been. And we were all relieved and overjoyed to have her back.

And then I woke up. And I was completely disoriented. In my half-awake state I couldn't figure out how I got from my wife's hospital room back to my own bed. And I figured out that it was all just a dream and that my wife was, in fact, still dead. I tell you, that was my lowest point in the entire experience. It was worse than holding her hand as she died. It was worse than the funeral. I was completely bereft. Even now, seventeen years later, thinking of that moment feels like a gut punch. I had experienced hope, and then had it taken away from me.

I can't speak for the families of the astronauts who died on Columbia. But I can say that, personally, I can't think of any way to be more cruel to them than to make a film showing their loved ones being rescued, only to have someone who actually knows what they're talking about come around afterwards and say, "Yeah, that couldn't have happened in real life." Let them rest.

[fredinno]

I am getting the feeling that this is a bad idea.

[Camacha]

Too soon is a ridiculous concept. It pretends that someone's death or suffering becomes less relevant over time. Quantifying suffering is distasteful to begin with, let alone connecting it to time. [I]Your grandma died last week, mine did yesterday, so my suffering is worse.[/I]

Make a movie about the disaster. It is what it is. If we can make the romantic movie Titanic today, we should be able to make it the week after the disaster. Edited November 18, 2015 by Camacha

[hugix]

It would be a cool movie if STS 107 didn't happen. Now it's just in poor taste.