Keith Cowing at NASAWatch put up a link to a video put out ostensibly by NASA, but it’s not like other ones they’ve done. This one is very, very cool.
The hi-res version is here, and is worth waiting for.
The music is cool. It has "Raiders of the Lost Ark" overtones at first, as Keith points out, then it kicks into a "Battlestar Galactica" thing. I wonder who did this, and what the music is from?
Incidentally, this is the kind of thing I was yelling at NASA to do years ago (well, not literally yelling, but I felt like it sometimes). A handful of these trailers, playing in movie theaters before some crappy SciFi epic, would go a long way toward showing the public that going back to the Moon is such an amazing and awe-inspiring thing to do. NASA needs to do lots more stuff like this.
NASA: you know where to find me. I still wanna help.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
It’s really a great trailer and a really good way for promoting science.
Three things I noticed:
1. Sound in space?
2. Why is the countdown repeated in German?
3. Aside from the usual emblems on spacesuits and the Ares rocket, there is no big american flag shown in the trailer. Might it be targeted at international audiences?
April 24th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
I remember seeing another simliar PSA done by NASA a couple of years ago showing a small child reaching out to touch a Mars globe, seguing into the “Moon. Mars. Beyond” line. It was quite possibly one of the most inspiring things I’d ever seen. I’ll see if I can’t dig it up.
I agree with you 100% Phil. If NASA ran a few of these things in movie theaters and on TV, public support would shoot through the roof. Of course, public relations was never NASA’s strong suit. Hell, they couldn’t even get the media interested in the THIRD manned moon mission IN HISTORY until something blew up.
As a strict libertarian, I’ve always espoused the opinion that the government shouldn’t fund anything not related to the preservation of liberty, particularly the federal government, but at the same time I’ve always had a soft spot for the space program. Particularly since they take so little compared to the rest of the government.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
At this point, human space flight has decayed so much that I’m willing to support anything NASA will give us. Still, I have to bring this topic up again.
As wonderful as a manned moon mission would be, I still cannot find a compelling reason to favor lunar exploration over Martian exploration.
Yes, I’ve heard the argument that we need to use the moon to test Martian equipment, but I have always felt that this was a null point. As far as test beds go, the moon is probably the least Mars like body in the inner solar system.
Mars has an atmosphere and a 24-hour day, with temperatures ranging from -60 to 10 degrees C. The moon has no atmosphere, and a 670-hour day, and temperature ranges in the 100’s of degrees C. Also, the kind of things that we would be doing on Mars (Paleo-geology, Atmospheric studies etc.) would be inapplicable on the moon.
In terms of environmental authenticity, there are places on Earth that would make a better Martian test bed than the moon. Take the Mars Societies Hab module in Antarctica fro example. They are learning great things about Martian exploration without ever leaving Earth.
To top it all off, because Mars let’s you use aero braking, it actually more expensive to send something to the surface of the moon then to Mars.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to kill the lunar effort. As I said, I’ll take anything NASA can give us at this point. But at this early stage, I would like to see our effort re-channeled into a manned Mars mission first. Wonderful as the moon is, I think Mars has many more interesting and important questions.
April 24th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
http://anon.nasa-global.speedera.net/anon.nasa-global/exploration/Reach.mpg
There it is.
What’s so aggravating is that they’re going to the trouble of making these, and no one’s seeing them except people who are already space geeks!
April 24th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Dugg.
Digg this story by pressing the ‘digg it’ link at top.
April 24th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
The dust hangs in the “air” a little too long, but beyond that:
Yes. YES. YES! I’m pumped! When do we go? Do I have time to charge my PSP?
April 24th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I was going to point out the “reach” commercial, but someone else already did.
The associate director of NIAC showed another awesome one to some SWE-Boston members two weeks ago (while telling us that NIAC may be cut! So unfair!), but I haven’t found it yet anywhere online… I did find this one, though, about a bunch of NIAC projects.
http://www.thefutureschannel.com/dockets/space/niac/
April 24th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
It never ceases to amaze me. NASA has some of the greatest material and stories to tell, but they’re never willing to take big risks. You should see the hoops I have to jump through to interview NASA staff. There has to be a handler on the phone call at the same time I do the interview, and they want a lot of comments about how I prepare things. So often, I just don’t bother going through NASA on stories.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Oh, yeah. I got this on my This Week @ NASA video podcast feed. Flippin’ awesome.
Where’s the love for Ares V, though? Tha big motherlauncher’s my favourite part of the project, in a lot of ways. 130 tons to orbit! Hell yeah!
April 24th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Love the Hi-res. Why do we even bother with crappy low-res YouTube? Oh yeah. Cause it’s ten times faster. The computer graphics are amazing. At the beginning of the launch sequence, I’m still trying to decide if that isn’t a shot of a Shuttle launch, cleverly cropped to show only the booster. Zapp: it’s not just in German, there’s also Spanish, French, and one or two other’s that I can’t translate.
Christian: dugg!
April 24th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
@Cameron.
Thanks, I didn’t recognize the other languages.
Off Topic:
Pro YouTube: It’s embeddable and the user doesn’t need a player that can handle .mov files. I like Phils solution: embedded YouTube plus link to High-res. In fact I liked it so much, that I have copied it (manual Trackback).
April 24th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Zurück zum Mond…
Die NASA zeigt gerade, wie man Wissenschaft fesselnd unters Volk bringen kann: [..]
Sorry, it’s German ;-)…
April 24th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I disagree, Max. The moon, in my opinion, is a far better destination than Mars. The majority of the lunar dust is Titanium and Aluminum, perfect metals for spacecraft construction, and in the brilliant lunar day, with the sun unobscured by an atmosphere, forges run by large mirrors could be used to smelt the ores into workable metals. The moon has gravity, (unlike earth orbit), and is a perfect place to have both astronomical observatories and research outposts. Think of it like the greatest space-station ever concieved, from which missions much larger than anything that could be economically launched from Earth may be based. In all likelihood, if we concentrated on Mars now, we would likely get essentially a repeat of Apollo, with a few expeditions before the money ran out, while we have the resources to continuously man a moonbase (especially if that ice in the polar craters indeed turns out to be water).
April 24th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
ZestyCrustacean Says: “The majority of the lunar dust is Titanium and Aluminum”
Really? I thought it was mostly basalts. Or are you referring to the metals making up basalt molecules. That would be a heck of a refining job although, as you pointed out, you have unfiltered sunlight 24/28 in most places and continuous at the poles (if you put the mirrors high enough).
- Jack
April 24th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
[…] to the Bad Astronomer for this link to a trailer for going back to the moon made by NASA. I think Phil is right, NASA […]
April 24th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Zesty,
Actually, the lunar regolith is mostly oxygen and silicates by weight. Aluminum and titanium are present in elevated levels, but ‘majority’ is being a bit generous. But that’s a minor point.
I actually mostly agree with you. The moon does present a nice source of raw materials, and an almost perfect platform for a large-scale observatory, but both of these are long-term investments, which NASA is not planning to undertake.
It’s going to take a very long time, and a large amount of money to make mining lunar ore competitive with terrestrial sources, and an observatory is something that would require a permanent support staff. Both of which are long-term goals that aren’t likely to be accomplished in the next decade.
As for a base from which to launch new missions, that is an unnecessary and complicating step. As I said above, thanks to Mars’s atmosphere, it’s actually cheaper to send something from Earth to Mars then it is from Earth to lunar orbit. Once we are actually able to build ships on the moon, that will change, but that is not likely to be a reality anytime soon. A mission to Mars needs to be kept safe and simple. Adding in the moon just adds more unnecessary variables to the equation.
What I am talking about is the present. Right now, NASA seems to be planning a repeat of the Apollo program. Several lunar landers, but no really permanent base. I’m arguing that as long as this is the plan; why not go to Mars instead of the moon? Even the ‘flags and footprints’ missions like Apollo brought incredible returns in science. Imagine what we would get from a similar venture on Mars.
I think that mining operations and large observatories are worthy long term goals for the moon. But RIGHT NOW I think that it makes sense to focus most of our effort on Mars.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:33 am
The trailer is awesome!
… the idea of putting inspirational clips like this before various sci-fi or science related movies is even better.
I hope someone with the right lever in their hand is reading this blog.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:01 am
The german language countdown might be an obscure homage to Werner Von Braun. He worked for the Nazi party in Germany during WWII, though there’s no real evidence that he shared their philosophies. He designed the V2 rockets that were launched into England. He did it, however, to further his life long ambition of visiting the moon. Following WWII, he and the rest of his design team were recruited by the US military to design rockets for US interests. He is largely responsible for the design of the Mercury and Apollo rockets used in the US space program during the middle part of the last century.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:42 am
NASA did, at one time, regularly put public relations films on TV. When I was a kid in the late ’60s & early ’70s I would see short films, two or three minutes in length, between programs on local television Saturday’s & Sundays. These little clips would use animations to illustrate ongoing research and probe-missions. It was an effective way to get out the message on what the Agency was doing, and what it was planning to do.
April 25th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Everyone above is correct (including you Phil, of course!): NASA needs to get some of these on TV and in theaters. That’s pretty expensive though (much more-so than developing the clip in the first place, I’m sure), but is there a discretionary PR budget?
Who should we contact to put pressure in the right place? NASA could use a public relations coup d’état, and this would be it!
April 25th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I hope they drop one rovers near the Apolly 11 landing area and send back live video of the American flag that is still there so all the moon hoax wacko’s and your friend Joe Rogan can see for them self how foolish they have been over the years. lets hope they make an IMAX of the mission as well.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Thomas Says: “I hope they drop one rovers near the Apolly 11 landing area and send back live video of the American flag that is still there so all the moon hoax wacko’s and your friend Joe Rogan can see for them self how foolish they have been over the years.”
Well, of course they are going to fake it again. If it was impossible once, it’s impossible now. And think of how much better the SFX are going to be! I’m sure they’re building the top-secret sound stage out in the Arizona desert even as we speak.
The only thing that would convince the MHB’s is to send them there in person.
- Jack
April 25th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I like it, but it’s just like “Why? Becasue we can!”
What is the scientific motivation? What is the frontier now?
And: sound in space?!
better think of these details before faking it again
April 25th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Here’s a traditional NASA video, a la YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi0YuWmTNxI
Nice. Informative. Pleasant to watch. Dull. All the passion of episode 12 of “Bureaucrats in Space”.
The new video that the BA found does have the oh-so-needed passion. I watched version 1.0 in real-time in 1969, and saw the excitement drain away too quickly over the intervening years. The YouTube version raised goosebumps. The 42 meg QuickTime made me weep.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Couldn’t hurt to remind them it would be cheaper, safer, and more useful than invading Iraq.
April 25th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Ok, I’m going to download the Hi-res version tomorrow and play it at the beginning of my physics classes. Then tell the kids (mostly high school seniors) that if they’re interested, pick science majors and then they can work on the Moon project out of college or possibly even go to the Moon. I know I have a few budding engineers.
If NASA made more clips like these I’d be happy to show them in my class!
Thanks, Phil, for bringing it to our attention.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Preferably without a space suit
April 26th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Showing it in theaters? Maybe they should start with placing that video on their website where it is easy to find…
Oh, and making it viewable with other Browsers than IE.
I will not install an ActiveX plugin to my Firefox 2.x that was made for Firefox 1.x, just to see proprietary movie formats, risking to mess up my system.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:11 am
Thomas says: “I hope they drop one rovers near the Apolly 11 landing area and send back live video of the American flag that is still there […]”
Sorry Thomas, but that nylon flag has gone long time ago.
Too much UV-Radiation…