Yup, it’s a special bonus episode!
We're launching a new series called Civics at the Movies, where we'll talk about the fun we have (and the inaccuracies we count!) when government and civics appear on screen...from All The President's Men to Veep to...don't even get us started.
For our inaugural edition, we're talking about NASA and Hollywood. Why does the agency in charge of science and technology relating to air and space have such a close relationship with the movie industry? And is it true that NASA scientist sometimes get inspiration from science fiction when they invent new gadgets?
Nick Capodice: [00:01:27] You're listening to Civics 101, I'm Nick Capodice,
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:30] I'm Hannah McCarthy, we have a fun little bonus episode for everybody today.
[00:01:34] "Say again, please. Houston, we have a problem."
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:37] You know, for a long time we've been saying, wouldn't it be really fun if we could do a civics episode about, like all the president's men or Mr. Smith goes to Washington? Yeah. All of these movies about democracy and government.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:49] Veep?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:50] Yeah, absolutely excellent. And then one day we're all sitting around. We were like, of course, civics at the movies
[00:01:59] "Plenty of time. So visit the snack bar. Now a tasty treat will double your enjoyment of the show."
Nick Capodice: [00:02:06] Our producer, Jacqui Fulton, is going to blast off with the first one. Jacqui, what are we talking about today?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:02:12] We're going to be talking about NASA and Hollywood.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:17] So, Jacqui, before we start, one of my favorite little trivia tidbits about NASA and the movies is that there is a movie so bad, so scientifically inaccurate that NASA uses it in training for new hires to find as many inconsistencies in the movie as they possibly can. It is the 1998 classic Armageddon the United States government just asked us to save the world.
[00:02:17] "We're talking about space, right? Outer space. This is like deep blue hero stuff. I'm there. I'm with you. Hit me up, Scotty."
Jacqui Fulton: [00:02:51] Oh yeah. That's the one where NASA recruits deep core drillers to fly to an asteroid and blow it up with a nuclear bomb before it can destroy Earth.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:01] It has one hundred and sixty eight things in it that are scientifically impossible, not just improbable, like impossible. That's that's that's more than one thing a minute that scientifically impossible.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:15] Okay so NASA, I'm very excited for this one. Did you actually talk to somebody who works for NASA?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:03:22] Boy, did I ever? I wore my NASA hat and favorite NASA shirt to talk to the big man himself. NASA's chief scientist, Dr. James Green, Dr. Green, are you there?
NASA Tech Help: [00:03:34] You know, we've been having some connectivity problems here at NASA today.
[00:03:38] "This is Houston. Say again, please."
Jacqui Fulton: [00:03:41] Dr. Green may know all the science and technology to get to the Moon, but like all of us, he still had issues with Zoom.
NASA Tech Help: [00:03:48] It may be that he needs to reboot his computer. I'm sorry, Dave.
[00:03:53] "I'm afraid I can't do that."
Dr. James Green : [00:03:55] Yes, I'm Jim Green, NASA's chief scientist.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:59] And for anyone out there who might not know what is NASA,Jacqui, can you help us out?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:04:04] I'll let this nice man from an old educational video explain
[00:04:09] "The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, was formed to consolidate U.S. policy in space that is devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind."
Jacqui Fulton: [00:04:22] While NASA might sound too cool to be a government agency, it is an independent agency in the Department of the Interior with a budget of twenty three point three billion dollars. NASA doesn't just send people in this space. They study the Earth, the climate, our solar system and beyond. Technology they develop is used to help all earthlings. Dr. Green is the chief scientist at NASA, the top guy Uber nerd of all the space nerds. I asked how we got into studying space in the first place
Dr. James Green : [00:04:58] In high school chemistry. The chemistry teacher was outstanding and he ended up becoming the head of an observatory was a 12 inch album Clark refractor. And it was during that time that Star Trek, the original one with the with Captain Kirk and Spock and McCoy in the crowd really came on the scene.
[00:05:22] "Enterprise log captain James Kirk commanding. We are leaving that vast cloud of stars and planets, which we call our galaxy."
Dr. James Green : [00:05:30] The question was when I wasn't watching Star Trek, I was observing the stars with the telescopes.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:05:36] You were talking about Star Trek. I'm sure you saw that William Shatner went into space.
Dr. James Green : [00:05:42] Yes.
Bill Schatner: [00:05:43] "So filled with emotion about what just happened. I just it's extraordinary."
Dr. James Green : [00:05:49] Yeah. Actually, I know William or Bill, as he likes to be called reasonably well. I was on Bill's podcast called Burgers and Beer.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:03] Two things: he knows Bill Shatner, and Bill Shatner has a podcast.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:06:09] Well, all the cool kids have a podcast. I'll drop them a line to beg for a guest spot.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:15] And speaking of Star Trek, Jacqui, there's this thing that I've heard that's a little hard to believe, which is that sometimes NASA scientists develop new technology based on stuff they see in pop culture. Is that actually true?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:06:31] Yeah. I asked about that.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:06:33] I've heard that like shows like Star Trek and Star Wars, especially Star Trek, have actually inspired scientists to make certain things. That's true.
Dr. James Green : [00:06:45] Yeah, of course. In fact, I was the NASA head consultant on the movie The Martian.
[00:06:52] "I have no way to contact NASA or my crewmates, but even if I could, it would take four years for another manned mission to reach me."
Dr. James Green : [00:07:00] I was very privileged to be able to do that. The book was written by Andy Weir. Great, a great hard science fiction book, meaning that you use the basic understanding of our physics and knowledge and then you extrapolate into the future and then create a vision. And we call that hard science fiction. And I had one of the major set designers, Art Max, with me at the Johnson Space Center.
Dr. James Green : [00:07:31] We toured modules that NASA was building to test what they might look like and functionality on the surface of Mars. And of course, that's part of the movie. And so he was walking around saying, I don't see this, I don't see this. How are you going to do that? How are you going to do this? And I said, Art, you have to figure this out. You have to you have to be able to decide what it's going to look like. And if we like it, we might actually adopt it.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:08:03] For example, Dr. Green talked about how things we see in shows like Star Trek influence the way NASA does, things like how NASA is able to call an astronaut on the space station on their iPhone.
Dr. James Green : [00:08:16] The TV show in the sixties, you know, was talking about as a major way you communicate well, communicators, you know, then are like our iPhones today. It's amazing what we can do
[00:08:30] "For the enterprise. Scott, sir. We're beaming up, not if I transport a room."
Dr. James Green : [00:08:35] And so indeed, things like that occur in science fiction that then gets stuck in our mind. And and indeed, many people move in the direction of creating these kind of things that are science fiction at the time, but can become science reality.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:08:54] This brings us back to Armageddon. It might not be as far-fetched as you thought, Nick.
[00:08:59] "Next, we have a bit of news from space. A NASA spacecraft set to launch this week, we'll try to change the trajectory of an asteroid, which could come in handy if Earth is ever threatened by a rock from space. It was put together by NASA's Planetary Defense Office, which is a real thing."
Nick Capodice: [00:09:18] There is an actual NASA planetary defense office, and they sent spacecraft to whack into an asteroid just like in the movie?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:09:28] It's less dramatic than Bruce Willis blowing up the asteroid with a nuclear bomb. NASA will be nudging the asteroid a different direction instead. But still, that science fiction becoming reality.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:42] So NASA, our real life space agency, sometimes creates technology based on science fiction and science fiction drives some of the tech that NASA develops. But why is NASA so cozy with the movie industry in the first place?
Nick Capodice: [00:09:59] We'll get to that after the break.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:16] Ok, we're back,
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:17] Yep, this is Civics 101 I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:19] I'm Nick Capodice,
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:20] And today we are talking about civics at the movies and the special relationship between NASA, the government agency responsible for science and technology related to air and space and the big screen.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:32] And helping us out today is our producer, Jacqui Fulton, who spoke with NASA's chief scientist, James Green. So Jacqui, we heard from Dr. Green that he consulted on The Martian, and I want to know to what extent is NASA officially involved in the movie business?
Jacqui Fulton: [00:11:48] Well, Sandra Bullock got to consult with an astronaut before shooting gravity, and NASA has confirmed that they're working with Tom Cruise to film a movie on the International Space Station. And of course, he does all his own stunts. Dr. Green told me that the agency is involved in over 40 to 50 documentaries and films a year.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:11] And look, I don't want to be a total killjoy here, Jacqui. But how does a government organization justify this kind of thing to its taxpayers?
Dr. James Green : [00:12:20] We are a federal agency. We're funded by the public and what we have, you know, can be requested and acquired. We have an enormous amount of data and indeed many, many groups use that data. So it's not always scientific. It can be used in different ways.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:12:38] NASA does invest labor, resources, and therefore taxpayer money into these movie projects, but they see it as part of their mission to give the public access to their work. And like in Dr. Green's case, it can be a good recruitment tool. For filmmakers, a perk of working with NASA is that they get to use NASA's technology like special airplanes to get actors into near zero gravity. They're called the vomit comet.
Dr. James Green : [00:13:06] These planes go into an orbit that goes straight up, flies a little parallel to the ground and then come straight down. And it's that it's that leg where they're going straight down that you end up feeling like you're in space. We call that microgravity. And you end up floating around.
Dr. James Green : [00:13:37] And in fact, you know, the movie Apollo 13, which is a movie about that particular mission's problem. It's beautifully filmed and you have the sense of weightlessness as they go from the capsule back into the the lunar module, you know, and float around. Much of that was filmed on what are called the Zero-G flights. These parabolic flights that that that happen to make it as realistic as possible, they didn't use wires. They weren't, You weren't suspended from the ceiling in some studio.
[00:14:14] "And we have a pretty good show in store for you tonight. We are going to show you just what our life is like for the three of us here in the vast expanse of outer space... And it really OK... One of the first things we'd like to do is provide you with the appropriate background music... So hit it there, Freddo. Hello, world."
Nick Capodice: [00:14:38] Last thing, if NASA is sharing its materials and data and scientists with filmmakers, how does someone like Dr. Green feel when he sees an Armageddon? You know, a bad capital b a D movie about space?
Dr. James Green : [00:14:53] Yeah, I I enjoy science fiction movies, but I really don't go to a movie and pick apart the science. I like going and, you know, sort of check my science at the door and go on in and really enjoy it.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:15:05] Yeah, it could get tedious, I guess, to pick it apart. So you're able to suspend disbelief.
Dr. James Green : [00:15:12] Yeah, sure. Of course, you have to recognize that as you study science, you're taught about physical principles and the laws of physics, the laws of quantum mechanics. Some of these things are very strange. In fact, most of them are very strange, and most of them are hard to relate to yourself here on Earth. You know, with gravity, the ability to tease out what's happening on scales that you cannot see with the atoms and how, how they're arranged and what they do, and that requires a little suspension of belief sometimes.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:15:55] I don't know about you, Nick. That makes me feel much better about binge watching X-Files.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:00] Me too. We're doing it for the science Jacqui. And if you want to hear more of Dr. Green geeking out about space science, you should check out his podcast, Gravity Assist.
Jacqui Fulton: [00:16:10] I told you all the cool kids have their own podcast.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:35] That'll do it. This episode of Civics 101 was produced by Jacqui Fulton and Rebecca LaVoy. Our staff includes Christina Philips
Nick Capodice: [00:16:42] Music in this episode by Animalweapon Chris Zabriskie, Uncanny Valleys, Nangdo, Sci Fi Industries, Ansia Orchestra, Blue Dot Sessions, and Karl Casey.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:50] And if you have a favorite movie or TV show about government or politics or anything adjacent to us, please drop us a line. Tell us you want an episode on it. You can email us at Civic's one on one at NH Nhpr.org.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:02] I really just want to get an expert on to break down the accuracy of movies that depict the machinations of Congress, you know?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:09] Yeah, OK. Speaking of accuracy, I have heard that people in government say that Veep is actually remarkably accurate, that a lot of what you see on that show is exactly how conversations and decisions go at the executive level. And I really want to know if that's true. I want to do an episode on it.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:27] All right. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR New Hampshire Public Radio.
