@fightforspacefilm / fightforspacefilm.tumblr.com
In December of 1968 three brave astronauts traveled to the Moon for the first time. We are telling the story of Apollo 8 in our new film. “First to the Moon”. 6 DAYS LEFT to help fund this project on Kickstarter. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/420606009/first-to-the-moon-the-journey-of-apollo-8
Our new documentary film “First to the Moon” #firstmoonmovie has a new #kickstarter campaign. First to the Moon tells the story of the Apollo 8 mission and the three astronauts that were the first people to leave the Earth. Please help fund and share!
Ashlee Vance, longtime tech journalist and author of Elon Musk: Tesla, Space, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, thinks these ambitions are driven by a mix of entrepreneurial curiosity, altruism and a dash of egotism. “The guys who are rulers of the universe now are the nerds,” he says. “They were all geeks raised on science fiction and the vision of space we had in the 1960s and 70s. Now they have the money to make this a reality.”
“One [path] is that we stay on Earth forever and then there will be an inevitable extinction event. The alternative is to become a spacefaring civilization, and a multi-planetary species.”
--- Elon Musk
Whether driven by a desire to do good or simply to burnish their legacy ultimately doesn’t matter, says Hannah Kerner, executive director of the Space Frontier Foundation, a non-profit that promotes human settlement in space. “Altruism and egotism are the same thing,” she says. “When people are feeling altruistic, they feel important. The same thing happens when they feel like they’re having an impact on society. They want to be seen as the ones who made a difference.”
To make space a viable destination for private companies and individuals, the costs have to be dramatically reduced. Enter Silicon Valley’s billionaire space explorers, who hope to disrupt the traditional aerospace industry with entrepreneurialism and modern manufacturing techniques.
Musk and Bezos are trying to save tens of millions of dollars by reusing the hugely expensive launch vehicles, rather than jettisoning them to burn up in the atmosphere. They are right to try and solve that problem, says Dr Sean Casey, managing director of the Silicon Valley Space Center, an incubator for new space start-ups. “No one flies a 747 to Europe, lands the plane, and then just grinds it up. Those planes last 40 years. The space industry is the only one that grinds up its vehicles.”
This article just outlines a small sampling of private space entrepreneurs among the hundreds of thousands working around the world on ambitious projects in preparation for the emerging space economy. Not to mention the reinvestments being committed by banking firms toward the human settlement of space by development of the “groundwork” necessary for scalability, reusability, and sustainability. Call it: responsible capitalism. This is how you #FightforSpace.
Illustration by Sean Mccabe; Photograph by NASA
Five minutes and four seconds into the flight of the Friendship 7, as John Glenn prepared to become the first American to orbit Earth, he radioed to NASA, his capsule turned and brought the Earth into sight. “Oh, that view is tremendous,” he said.
[…]
After a trip across the Indian Ocean, mission control told Glenn that he’d be seeing the lights of Perth in western Australia. He confirmed that he did see them. “The lights show up very well and thank everybody for turning them on, will you?” Glenn joked.
“In the periscope, I can see the brilliant blue horizon coming up behind me; approaching sunrise. Over.” Mission Control replied, “You are very lucky.” Glenn said, “You’re right. Man, this is beautiful.”
Read more.
RIP John Glenn, the perfect officer and gentleman. Good night and Godspeed.
John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, died on Dec. 8, 2016. He was 95.
Glenn was a military man who flew 149 combat missions during the Korean War. In 1959, the year he posed for this portrait in a Mercury program pressure suit and helmet, he was announced as one of NASA’s original seven astronauts. Pictured here on the cover of the Feb. 2, 1962 cover - MAKING OF A BRAVE MAN. (Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #JohnGlenn
RIP John Glenn.
You’ll never see another seven like these guys, for sure.
No, we certainly won’t.
We will, however, see fresh and ambitious men AND women of much more diverse backgrounds and ethnicities who’ve been inspired by those “original” seven astronauts. Primed and ready to brave the ocean of space between equally hazardous environments on new worlds entirely, the lessons learned from Gemini through Apollo and upwards through the STS program will continue serve us all as we develop and mature into a robust and steadily evolving civilization of spacefarers.
John Glenn (1921-2016) was all those things and more. When he rocketed into space on Feb. 20, 1962, to become the first American to orbit Earth, the flight set the nation on course to meet ever-more ambitious goals.
The life and career of Senator Glenn eclipses those of many. In spite of his accomplishments, he was a humble and gracious man (and 4-term U.S. senator).
During Glenn’s first flight, a scheduled 30-minute test to determine whether Glenn could fly the capsule manually became a matter of life and death when the automatic system malfunctioned after the first orbit.
“I went to manual control and continued in that mode during the second and third orbits, and during re-entry,” Glenn recalled later. “The malfunction just forced me to prove very rapidly what had been planned over a longer period of time.” Another problem seemed even more serious – telemetry indicated the spacecraft’s heat shield was loose. It seemed possible that Glenn and the spacecraft would be incinerated on re-entry. Glenn left the retrorocket pack in place to steady the heat shield during re-entry. “It made for a very spectacular re-entry from where I was sitting,” he said. Big chunks of the burning material came flying by the window.
He wasn’t sure whether the flaming debris was the rocket pack or the heat shield breaking up. “Fortunately,” he told an interviewer,“ it was the rocket pack – or I wouldn’t be answering these questions.”
In the words of President Obama, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012: “When John Glenn blasted off from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas rocket in 1962, he lifted the hopes of a nation. And when his Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down a few hours later, the first American to orbit the Earth reminded us that with courage and a spirit of discovery there’s no limit to the heights we can reach together. With John’s passing, our nation has lost an icon and Michelle and I have lost a friend. John spent his life breaking barriers, from defending our freedom as a decorated Marine Corps fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, to setting a transcontinental speed record … The last of America’s first astronauts has left us, but propelled by their example we know that our future here on Earth compels us to keep reaching for the heavens. On behalf of a grateful nation, Godspeed, John Glenn.”
Glenn left the Astronaut Corps in 1964 and resigned from the Marine Corps in 1965. And, after some time in private industry ran for and was elected ti the U.S. Senate in 1974, carrying all 88 counties of Ohio. He was re-elected in 1980 with the largest margin in Ohio history. Ohio returned him to the Senate for a third term in 1986. In 1992 he was elected again, becoming the first popularly elected senator from his state to win four consecutive terms. During his last term he was the ranking member of both the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Air/Land Forces in the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also served on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Special Committee on Aging. He was considered one of the Senate’s leading experts on technical and scientific matters, and won wide respect for his work to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
In 1998, Glenn flew on the STS-95 Discovery shuttle flight, a 9-day mission during which the crew supported a variety of research payloads including deployment of the Spartan solar-observing spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope Orbital Systems Test Platform, and Glenn’s investigations on space flight and the aging process.
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden remembers, “Senator Glenn’s legacy is one of risk and accomplishment, of history created and duty to country carried out under great pressure with the whole world watching.”
Today, we honor him for all that he stood for and continues to stand for – grace under pressure, humility, ability, strength.
Godspeed, John Glenn.
Godspeed John Glenn.
With the first scientist to visit and work on the lunar surface, the primary scientific objectives included “geological surveying and sampling of materials and surface features in a preselected area of the Taurus-Littrow region; deploying and activating surface experiments; and conducting in-flight experiments and photographic tasks during lunar orbit and transearth coast.”
December 7, 1972 — Inside the launch control center at Cape Canaveral on the day the Apollo 17 mission launched toward the Moon.
It’s a shame that we say this is the last mission. There should’ve never been a last moon mission.
We’ll be back…. sooner or later.
Paul Hildebrandt, Director/Producer ‘Fight for Space’
Director Paul Hildebrandt puts into perspective the danger and detachment of America’s growing apathy for astronomy in his documentary Fight for Space.
Though the Space Race inspired several generations to chase space and seek careers in science and technology, we’ve seen a steady decline in educational pursuit of space exploration in recent years. Fight for Space urges viewers to reawaken the sense of wonder and discovery and includes interviews with big names such as Bill Nye and Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell who share Hildebrandt’s vision for the future of the final frontier. We sat down with Paul, who’s love for astronomy, fascination with science fiction and concern for future generations galvanized this push to reinvest money and minds into space education.
What was your main motivation for making the documentary?
As an aspiring science fiction writer and soon-to-be father in 2012, I began to think of both how little the future seemed to be offering the next generation in terms of space flight. With the Space Shuttle just having been retired, and the Constellation program canceled, things were not looking up. I dropped the pen on trying to write a science fiction movie, believing that the Star Trek future would never exist until we figure out how to get out of low earth orbit. I had the idea to do a documentary on these issues as a way of bringing attention to them, and off we went.
Have you always been interested in Astronomy or is it something you came to later in life?
For as long as I can remember I’ve always been interested in space. Through both practical astronomy and science fiction. I’ve always wondered what could be out there.
Why do you think we lost interest in space education?
Interest in space education and space flight in general has had a bumpy road. In the 60s we were in a cold war with the Soviet Union and this spurred science education further than it had ever been before. Ever since then the focus has been mostly on earth bound problems which seem to resurface and repeat themselves constantly. Today space gets a few headlines and tv specials when NASA or SpaceX announces something, but we haven’t seen any of this come to be yet. To reignite interest in space we need to actually do something, not just talk about. Pulling back from the Moon and ending that program was I believe, a huge mistake and the ultimate answer to your question.
How long did it take to shoot? Did you run into any challenges while making it?
The film took about 4 years and change to make and it was incredibly challenging for me, both personally and professionally. NASA for example, did not want any part of the project because the question of “Why haven’t we gone back to the Moon?” Was too negative for their PR. I was given great help in finding footage and acquiring information but completely restricted from visiting any NASA facility or interviewing any NASA personnel officially. So a film that was originally going to be a film looking at how NASA was going to do all these great things in the future turned into more of a tragedy about why we stopped going and how messed up things are today. I learned a lot making this film and I’m excited to take these lessons into my next film, producing it quicker and more efficiently.
Can you tell our readers why they should see Fight for Space and what you want the audience to take away from the film?
Fight for Space is a film about the great things that we have done, and what we can do if we put our heads together and just do it. I’d like the audience to take away from this film all of the benefits that can be gained by doing space exploration and to see how badly it’s been messed up over the years. If you have ever looked up at the night sky and wondered what is out there, this is the film for you.
Can you give tips to any prospective Documentary film makers and what did you learn while making Fight for Space?
First, film making is collaborative, you can’t do everything yourself as much as you want to try. With that said it’s also important to follow your heart and make the film how you want to make it. Be expressive with your style of film making.
I learned more making Fight for Space than I ever did in any film class or formal training. Trial and error in both film making, dealing with people both close and far, public relations, technical requirements, archival research, the list is endless. I think the greatest way to learn how to make a movie is to make one. You can’t be told how to do it.
What’s next step for both you and the doc?
For the doc, I hope to continue showing it around the country and various festivals and then finally get it on some streaming services so everyone can see it as soon as possible.
As for me, after I wind down from this it’s off to make more documentaries, maybe about space, maybe not. Taking what I’ve learned and doing it better than I did last time, that’s what it’s about.
Source: VIMOOZ
‘Fight for Space’ premiered November 14-15, 2016 at the @docnyc film festival in the @ifc center. If you’d like to request a screening of the film, we urge you to contact or meet with your local theaters, science centers, museums, and universities, vying to encourage the #FightforSpace wherever you are!
October 29, 1966 – Gemini 12 astronaut Buzz Aldrin dives into underwater zero-gravity training. (NASA)
Peter Elson
