|
|
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Memories of Atlantis in film (the "Hollywood" shuttle)
|
Jay Chladek
Member Posts: 2272
From: Bellevue, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2007
|
posted 05-26-2010 08:23 PM
   
I looked back on the shuttle history in science fiction and film and it seems that Atlantis has been featured in more movie productions either as a main character or a bit player then the other shuttles in the fleet (in print media as well). Here are but some of its appearances: - Space Camp- Should almost be required watching for anyone that visited Huntsville during the early days of Space Camp as they will potentially get some serious deja vu in spots. The premise has 5 campers and one astronaut/camp counselor getting launched into orbit aboard Atlantis when its flight readiness firing goes horribly wrong. The launch footage of Atlantis was real of course and she was nice and clean with her gleaming TPS. I'm just not sure if they shot the footage during Atlantis' first trip (a DoD flight) or the second one into space before STS-51L grounded the program for a few years.
- Armageddon- Atlantis was featured as little more then a bit player in this film as it was seen getting destroyed by a meteor shower in Earth orbit in the first 10 minutes. But, the X-71 launch footage had its genesis in high quality film taken of a night launch of Atlantis by the producers as they mounted their film cameras in the same remote camera boxes NASA used and worked them with the same power grid. Even though a digital model of an SF shuttle is overlaid on top of Atlantis itself, the SRB and ET footage is unaltered and a feast for the senses. I only wish the Criterion collection disk had the original unaltered footage of the launch as an extra since I'll bet it was something to see. Only tiny glimpses we got of it were in the early film trailers.
- Deep Impact- I may be mistaken, but I think Atlantis was used to deliver the crew to the spacecraft Messiah in orbit. Funny enough, the footage was also of a night launch (might have been the same launch Armageddon's crew filmed). The footage isn't quite as good as most of it came from further away cameras, but it got the point across anyway and showcased Atlantis again.
- Max Q- A lower budget film put out by Jerry Bruckheimer films for TV the same year that Armageddon came out on the big screen. Personally, this one was painful to watch and I'm surprised Bruce McCandless lent himself as a technical advisor on it (although the spacewalk scene is passable). Shuttle Atlantis launches into orbit (again, night launch footage, but not from Armageddon) with a commercial satellite and becomes crippled in orbit when the satellite damages its APUs. The crew has to jury rig one to come back and ends up wedging the thing under a highway overpass (yeah, right, love the toxic spill of the hypergolics THAT would cause). If anyone offers you a copy of this film, don't watch it. Or douse it in lighter fluid and burn it after watching to save some other poor soul from seeing it!
- Scorpio One- A low budget Sci Fi Channel flick, possibly coming from the Roger Corman stable as it is a little more watchable then some of the others (certainly better then Max Q). It did feature some decent model work though. By name, Shuttle Atlantis is used to ferry an investigation crew up to a station called Scorpio One to investigate the cause of an oxygen fire up there. It is more a murder plot thriller then anything with cheesy sets (although the shuttle interior looks real). At one point, one of the killers steals the shuttle and burns up on reentry. An Apollo capsule also makes an appearance as a CRV lifeboat (something that was actually proposed for Space Station Freedom at one time).
By the way, anyone else noticing a pattern here of Atlantis becoming the hard luck shuttle? In film it has been blown up, crippled and destroyed on reentry in three of the films it was seen in. But at least it didn't have to land in the LA river like Endeavour did in "The Core" (what happened to LAX?).  - Shuttle Down- Okay, not a film, but a novel by G. Harry Stine under his pen name Lee Correy. It tells the tale of Atlantis launching out of Vandenberg and suffering a pre-mature MECO and having to do an emergency landing on the runway at Easter Island. It is then a race against time to recover the shuttle before threat forces can do so. As I understand it, this book helped to get federal funding together to extend the runway on Easter Island so it could be used as a possible abort site by shuttles intended for polar launches from Vandenberg (neither of which ever got used operationally though).
|
Hart Sastrowardoyo
Member Posts: 3445
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000
|
posted 05-27-2010 11:38 AM
"Shuttle Down" is notable not only for a Rick Sternbach (of "Star Trek" fame) cover - but also of the cover depicting Atlantis in Columbia paint scheme (name on payload bay doors, black wing chines.) |
Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3118
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
|
posted 05-27-2010 04:59 PM
I am most grateful to NASA and the Chilean government for the extension of the Easter Island runway which allows commercial flights between Santiago and Tahiti to land on Easter Island. It's a great place to visit! | |
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved.
Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.47a
|
|
|
 advertisement
|
