Movies: Gravity 3D

Dad and I just went to see Gravity 3D. Some comments:

1. True hard sci-fi fans know that space is exceedingly dangerous. It's vacuum. It's full of radiation. The temperature changes are really really dangerous for materials and wear. Nothing up there is going to last except as a gravity well or source of debris. We know motorcycling naked is thousands of times safer than leaving our atmosphere. Running in a thunderstorm carrying a lightning rod is safer than space. Space is for suicidal idiots and astronomy. And astronomy is more useful than idiots.
2. It's lovely to see an example of Kepler Syndrome, and I would like to personally kick, in the balls, the person who keeps erasing the article from Wikipedia so the public won't find out about this massively dangerous and potentially devastating consequence to space exploration. Kepler Syndrome is what destroyed everything in Gravity. And it was in the early stages, too. It gets worse, in the real world. The debris doesn't conveniently fall out the sky and burn it. Some of it rises into higher orbits, and breaks up more stuff, or runs into more stuff and makes even more debris. Eventually NOTHING you launch gets through the Kepler Syndrome cloud and becomes more debris. Since Escape Velocity is Mach 25.5, the speed stuff moves at in orbit is WAY faster than the movie showed, and very small objects, like the screw on your glasses, is enough to destroy the International Space Station. As they say in SpaceBattles.com: "Anything at sufficient velocity." They are nerds, but they are right.
3. The movie got the math wrong. Orbital math is really different from point and shoot burns. It made great TV, but it was wrong. Orbital math is why there was half a dozen stories JUST LIKE THIS from the 1960's, before the space program, some of which are the reason safety protocols at NASA exist in the first place. Ironically, scifi writers thought up the basic mechanic of the moon landing, (Robert Heinlein) and got used for the actual mission. Back in the old days, engineers were educated, not buffoons who can't detect a parabola calculation (Hubble) isn't right, just by looking at it. Every kid who went through Precalculus and can calculate a Quadratic Equation can spot that. That's junior high school level math, kids. Yet NASA can't pull it off. Nor can they swap between standard and metric. Idiots. So all the NASA stuff breaking? I couldn't stop laughing. Gravity is almost a comedy if you know NASA history in the last 20 years. Or 30 if you want to include Challenger. NASA: "Space Is Our Final Frontier: We can't flip burgers!"
4. The only thing that worked right in the whole movie was the final lander. A Chinese copy of a Russian Soyuz. Russian engineering is built with a mind towards function rather than elegance, so it always works. It won't be beautiful, but it works. This is why with the computers catching fire and the module getting hit by debris, landing safely is achieved. That's a spoiler, but this is Hollywood. Could there be any other answer?
5. They opted not to actually say: "What else could go wrong?" but the whole movie has that kind of feel.

I just wanted to mention that the air pack on a NASA EVA suit isn't just a gas tank. It's a fuel cell scrubber, like used on a submarine, and chemically reacts out the CO2 and releases Oxygen again, so they last for something like 18 hours with a fresh pack of what is usually ground Limestone. The SEALS use them too. You can buy one, for diving, for a mere $150K if you're loaded enough to really want that sort of air supply.

The 3D was fun. It really made it more enjoyable, and almost makes up for all the lens flares, which are the second worst I've seen since Star Trek (reboot). When this movie finally comes out on streaming, you'll want to watch it with scientist friends, and drink a shot every time you see an error. An astrophysicist may die, so make sure they're limited to beer shots rather than vodka or whiskey. Also, I miss the "INN A WOORRRLLD..." guy in all those movie trailers. And I'm bored to death of BWAAWWWMMM all the time. Really tired of BWAAAHM. I think I have heard that noise enough. Also, no astronaut will ever IGNORE open flame in a space vessel. Not since the Bell 5 mission. They're super sensitive to flame. Space vessels run low pressure, like top of the Andes, and raised oxygen to make up for it so flame is very explosive. The little ringlets were actually accurate, but probably not the sort of thing which last long before full conflagration. If anything, the entire space station should have been burnt out before she got there.

So yeah, good film, so long as you accept its limitations. It's meant to be horror movie thriller, but if you know science it's one with lots of wincing. It's probably excellent if you're a little drunk. Enough to turn off your brain and just be there.