The sci-fi film that’s embarrassing NASA

 

Richard Garriott (right) aboard the ISS with two of the three actors in his short film: Americans Mike Fincke (centre) and Greg Chamitoff (left). Credit: NASA

Richard Garriott became the first second-generation American astronaut in October 2008. His father is, in fact, none other than Owen Garriott who carried out a mission on board NASA’s Skylab station in 1973 and then took part in space shuttle flight STS-9 in 1983. However, the son does not owe his flight to the American Space Agency. Having made his fortune in video games (including the famous Ultima), Richard Garriott paid for his week-long stay (it is said to have cost 35 million dollars) aboard the International Space Station, travelling there and back aboard a Russian Soyuz spaceship. Whilst he was up in space, he notably carried out the “Icarus project”: that of making a short fiction film set on board the ISS with the astronauts as actors. So that the rules governing the orbital complex were respected, the few sequences necessary were shot during the short amount of rest time that the space professionals had in their very full timetable. The title of the film? Apogee of fear. The storyline? When Richard Garriott left the Station with two Russian cosmonauts, the Americans Greg Chamitoff and Michael Fincke, together with Russian Yuri Lonchakov, went back to work and noted that too much oxygen was being used for just three people... Something else was on board!
Don’t go thinking that Richard Garriott has concocted a horrific sci-fi film. No, it’s just that the short film is funny in that Chamitoff and Fincke first of all complain about Garriott’s mania of always talking about video games, they then start to miss him as he always settled their disputes as regards who was upside-down and who was right-side-up in the Station (which is of very little interest in weightless conditions). This is clearly a light-hearted parody especially as the extra “creature” proves to be Richard Garriott himself who actually remained clandestinely on board. But there is also another “creature”: the mother of the astronaut’s son who has come to lecture the crew (this is obviously the result of clever editing as Richard’s mother was never on board!).
Apogee of Fear is, nevertheless, the first scripted work of fiction filmed in space. In this regard, the extremely serious Smithsonian Institution (who notably manages the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC) has apparently requested a copy because of its historic interest. The problem is that NASA is currently opposing any public showing of the film. The legal obstacles are supposedly due to the fact that the site of the shooting is the Station which is dependent on international agreements and the Agency itself, not to mention management of astronauts’ image rights. Richard Garriott thinks that NASA could be embarrassed by the playful tone of his film.

Published on 18 January 2012