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What has happened?
- Sixty years after the Soviet Union beat its rival superpower United States to become the first state to send a human into space,
- Its successor Russia has trumped the US in another kind of space race — shooting the first feature film in orbit.
- This Tuesday, actor Yulia Peresild and director Klim Shipenko travelled to International Space Station (ISS) in a Soyuz MS-19 aircraft to film about 35 to 40 minutes of footage from the movie titled Vyzov, or The Challenge.
- With them was veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov.
- Barring a minor hiccup related to the automatic docking system, the flight was an all-around success.
- Peresild and Shipenko will spend a total of 12 days in ISS.
- Reports from last year had claimed that Hollywood star Tom Cruise, known for his death-defying stunts in Mission: Impossible movies, had been approached to make a movie in space.
- Doug Liman, who has directed Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow and American Made, was going to direct the film, with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX also involved in the production.
- Later that year, the then NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine had confirmed, saying SpaceX will deliver Cruise and the crew to ISS.
What is the Russian film about?
- Vyzov is about a cosmonaut who loses consciousness after being hit by space debris in the middle of a spaceflight.
- His condition does not allow him to return to earth, a surgeon is flown to the International Space Station to operate on him in zero gravity.
- Russian space agency Roscosmos, state television Channel One and the studio Yellow, Black and White are behind the project.
What is the reason behind making the film in space?
- The realism argument can be given to explain why a significant portion of the movie is being shot in space.
- But in this day and age, visual effect artists, armed with nothing more than blue or green screens and computers, can make a soundstage look like Mars, or Middle-earth, or anything else one wishes.
- Photorealism in the film medium has been achieved to the point it is near-impossible to tell the difference between the real thing and visual effect.
- For instance, in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2013 acclaimed science-fiction thriller Gravity, every shot featuring space or celestial objects was built using computer-generated imagery (CGI).
- In fact, visual effects supervisor Tim Webber said the film was 80% CGI.
- The film was still praised for its realism and went on to win seven Oscars, one of them for cinematography.
- Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin explained the real reason behind the project: national pride.
- A major figure behind the film, he said his purpose was to glorify the country’s space capabilities.
- Associated Press quoted him as saying: “We have been pioneers in space and maintained a confident position. Such missions that help advertise our achievements and space exploration, in general, are great for the country.”
What were the challenges faced?
- Travelling through space requires considerable physical and mental fitness.
- Both Peresild and Shipenko described the preparation training before the spaceflight as gruelling but added that the end result was ultimately worth all the toil.
- Peresild told reporters in a press conference (quoted by AP), “We worked really hard and we are really tired, even though we stay in good spirits and smile. It was psychologically, physically and morally hard.
- But I think that once we achieve the goal, all that will seem not so difficult and we will remember it with a smile.”
- “Of course, we couldn’t make many things at the first try, and sometimes even at a third attempt, but it’s normal,” said Shipenko.
Q) The lightest solid on earth is?
- Cotton
- Sand
- Aerogel
- Boron
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