April 16, 2002

11:43 AM

Space Station*, the first 3D IMAX film, opens this week in the US, next week in the UK. Tom Cruise narrates. Hanks must have been busy.

(*Flash required)
posted by mr_crash_davis (6 comments total)

Missed a word. The first 3D IMAX space film.

Sorry.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:45 AM on April 16, 2002

I was about to say...

...but now I won't. :-)
posted by kfury at 2:34 PM on April 16, 2002

I feel like I've been waiting for this movie since my father first took me to see To Fly! at the Air & Space Museum in 1976. He's a space buff; I grew up a space buff. All I want to know is: how did they fit those enormous IMAX cameras into the space station?
posted by swerve at 4:21 PM on April 16, 2002

swerve:

"The normal Imax 3-D camera is the size of a small refrigerator, not something you can easily lug into space.

So a new, smaller camera had to be built to NASA size specifications — it turned out about the size of a microwave oven. At that size the camera can take only 108 seconds of film before reloading, so it was important to get a shot right the first time."--Yahoo News
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:43 PM on April 16, 2002

Here's a picture of an astronaut with the camera and light, and astronauts handling a film magazine. It was made partly incorporating lessons from building the IMAX camera for the Everest movie.

swerve, the space station is cramped compared to Earth, but the US side is actually designed to allow movement of experiment and control "racks" about the size of a refrigerator. The Destiny lab actually has room for 24 racks, but it only launched with five installed, mainly for weight reasons. With the addition of Destiny last year, the ISS easily passed Mir in terms of interior volume.
posted by dhartung at 9:15 PM on April 16, 2002

Just saw it. The 3D always gives me a headache and queasy stomach, but the images are amazing. Tom Cruise wasn't too awful, either.
posted by muckster at 7:28 PM on April 17, 2002