re: "Gravity" Tomatometer Thread: 215 Reviews, 98% Fresh

As promised, my retort to Gravity being the most realistic space movie of all time and being realistic in general. SPOILERS of course.

From a guy on another board who works for NASA:

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After the initial "event" that conveniently destroys the Shuttle that Clooney and Bullock were on while repairing HST, they "seek refuge on the International Space Station, which is conveniently located nearby." One word problem: "inclination" HST is at 28.5 degrees and ISS is at 51.6 degrees. You just don't make those kind of inclination changes in orbit. It's not done. But somehow, there you go. Oh... and then Sandy pilots *TWO OTHER SPACECRAFT* from Russian and China as she just casually pops over to a mythical Chinese space station. Because, you know... they're all universal in their flight controls, all astronauts are cross-trained for just such an emergency, and ... oh yeah... they're all just floating around right next to each other in the same orbital inclination. There's that one word again... "inclination". The Chinese orbit at 42.8 degrees.

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From Time:

Time

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NASA doesn’t care if you have a hot body or not. 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. But NASA isn’t Hollywood. 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. 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. (91 m) of fashionable plastic tubing running through it. She’d also be wearing an adult diaper and would be wringing with sweat. Doesn’t matter if you’re Bullock, Penelope Cruz or Nicole Kidman, you would not be looking your best.

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First 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, in most cases, stays at that angle too. Russian satellites, however, orbit at higher inclinations, for the same reason—to keep them as close as possible to the Motherland. 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. After the shuttle is destroyed, the surviving astronauts seek refuge on the International Space Station, which is conveniently located nearby. 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. 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.

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What’s more, a satellite-demolishing chain reaction would never happen in the first place. In 2008, the U.S. 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. 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. So do we, we signaled back, so do we. In neither case was there a risk of anything like what occurred in Gravity, and while you could probably write a computer model that would show how such a thing could happen, it’s wildly improbable.

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Then there was all the spacewalking. When the movie opens, we see Bullock and another crewmember hard at work on the Hubble and the shuttle, while George Clooney, wearing a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU, essentially a space jet pack) zips around them, having a grand time as he listens to country music and wisecracks. It’s the only bit of the movie that looks slightly silly—and it also grossly overstates the speed and maneuverability of the MMU. What’s more, NASA would never countenance such cosmic silliness because the MMU’s fuel was limited and could easily run out—something that in fact happens in the movie. When disaster strikes and Clooney is adrift, it’s fair to wonder if his character wishes he’d cooled it a bit on the earlier horseplay. Bullock, who is not wearing an MMU, finds herself in similar free-floating peril. While spacewalking astronauts wear tethers, they are also equipped with a small backpack called SAFER (Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue) which would allow them to maneuver back to the safety of the ship if the tether should break. Bullock’s does, but she has no SAFER. Later, when she improvises, using a space station fire extinguisher as a sort of handheld jetpack—well, suffice to say that actually maneuvering with such a thing would be far less successful than it is on screen.

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And a mixed bag review from a current astronaut She praised some of the hardwork behind the scenes and what they got right, but for every "right" there is at least one or two wrongs.

So yeah to say it was wholly realistic is bullshite. To say it was even the most realistic mainstream space movie is also bullshite (Apollo 13 holla).