NASA Helps Hollywood Do It Right
Moviemakers are not rocket scientists, so when Hollywood wants to make a sci-fi film, they often go to NASA experts for advice.
The latest movie to benefit from the technical know-how of the National Aeronautic and Space Administration is Clint Eastwood's aging-astronaut adventure Space Cowboys.
Recently, NASA senior space station scientist Kathryn Clark helped the movie's set designers recreate shuttles, space station models and sets, including a full-scale Mission Control, at a Burbank studio.
Astronaut Yvonne Cagle, meanwhile, worked with the Space Cowboys cast on preflight protocols and procedures for always tricky spacewalks.
"Hollywood is a way for us to get people excited about space, and we do that by sharing our experience to make this fictional story as real as possible," Clark said.
NASA's involvement has swelled since 1995, when scientists helped produce dazzlingly realistic effects in director Ron Howard's Apollo 13, the true-life story of a 1970 moon-mission gone awry. Agency officials consulted on everything from the explosion of an oxygen tank that crippled the spaceship, to the tense hours in which experts helped jury-rig equipment to bring the three astronauts home.
"The public today is very sophisticated about science, and NASA's help makes the stories seem more believable," said film publicist Warren Betts, who specializes in scouting technical experts for moviemakers.
Phil West, a former NASA mechanical engineer who now works as a NASA spokesman, told CBSNews.com producer Justine Blau that Hollywood movies have the creative freedom to disobey Isaac Newton.
"In most motion pictures and television shows that portray space, you often see enhanced physics -- things happen that wouldn't necessarily happen that way," he said.
"Movies take license with physics. In one case, spacecraft accelerate and decelerate rapidly, more so than the human body could take…the force of acceleration would rip the human body apart."
West said another inaccuracy often seen in movies is when an object flies by in space. "You often hear a noise associated with it, and that wouldn't happen in space because there are no molecules to transfer the sound," he explains.
"At the same time, we all know that a movie without sound effects would be boring. So, at NASA we can say what we think would happen, but the writers and producers are free to take what license they want with physics to tell their stories," said West.
Nevertheless, NASA officials balk at projects they deem too far-fetched. Space operas like the Star Wars series and alien annihilation epics like Independence Day and are simply too fantastic for most scientists.
"We clearly want to protect the use of our NASA logo so that it's used properly and appropriately," says West. "At the same time we don't have a desire to control someone's creative content. In thcase of Space Cowboys, the bad guy is a NASA bureaucrat. We look at that and we don't try to write out the bad guy. We're not going to try to change that."
Cooperating with NASA enabled Eastwood, who directed and stars in the movie, to shoot segments at both the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Over its debut weekend, Space Cowboys finished in third place at the box office, earning $17.6 million.
The story of aging astronauts who get a final chance in orbit to fix a crippled satellite draws parallels to the real-life experiences of John Glenn and Story Musgrave.
Musgrave now uses his expertise to boost the realism of movies about outer space. Most retired astronauts seek employment in the aerospace industry after hanging up their space suits, he said. Musgrave, however, chose to design space ships and moonscapes for the "Imagineering" department of Walt Disney Co.
He recently consulted on director Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars.
"I feel it's essential to convert what I know so that it can be communicated to an audience and get their imaginations moving," he said.
Hollywood is one of the most powerful marketing forces in the world, Betts points out. "The movies are critical in helping NASA excite the public about what they do, which may get them more support from Congress."
West says the highlight of working with movie people is when the "production folks come to visit and shoot their film here. Invariably they learn a lot about space travel, and what an amazingly harsh environment space really is.
"There's a "wow" factor when they come in and see the real stuff. They play make in make-believe and they come here and see where the rubber hits the road," West says. "And so they find themselves with a new appreciation for the challenges we face sending people into space; and also a grander appreciation for the determination of the human spirit to explore the unknown."