You’d be hard-pressed to find a fictional representation of long-distance space travel that doesn’t focus on the mental weight of loneliness and claustrophobia. from, Moon When alien in multiple episodes of twilight zone and many for all mankind.
In the deepest part of the galaxy, you might encounter equipment-damaging solar flares, alien colonization, or whatever happened in the Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence movies, but the more concrete threats are simply You may be lonely.
the longest goodbye
Conclusion
Rushed, but mostly effective.
Watch Id Mizrahi’s Sundance premiere documentary the longest goodbye So as a prequel to every sci-fi story ever told. An examination of NASA’s actual attempt to tackle what was previously the realm of capricious fabulists. the longest goodbye We don’t have access issues or enough time to deploy the most dominant themes. But the questions the documentary and its subjects ask are compelling, emotionally considered, and in some ways universal.
Mizrahy’s investigation begins with NASA on the brink of the next evolution of spaceflight. After decades of stagnation, we focused on inhabiting the International Space Station, with multiple presidents promising a return to the moon, followed soon after by the first manned mission to Mars. rice field.
It’s a process that has prompted a rethinking of how data is entered on the astronaut side of the program.people who have read or seen the right one I know that the first astronauts were test pilots. A daring adrenaline junkie who was chosen for his ability to make split-second decisions on missions that sometimes lasted only a few hours, they came blank on psychological tests. Today’s astronaut is expected to work towards her three-year journey to Mars and a return visit.
“It’s an engineering culture,” says Dr. Jack Staster, a so-called “human factors expert.” “A soft, fluffy human being is utterly unfathomable to an engineer.”
Enter Dr. Al Holland, the true hero of this documentary. Holland was a NASA-sponsored Houston-area psychologist who oversaw an early-stage psychological preparation team, studying factors that could lead to mission-endangering problems. He comes up with criteria for selecting astronauts to face those problems. We seek solutions to protect missions that cannot be scrapped or reduced based on personal breakdowns and interpersonal conflicts.
Mizrahy and writer/producer Nir Sa’ar take us from the recent past to the present and the future, exploring the contingencies we actually have and which solutions are speculative. Emphasize that it remains a fiction.
Documentaries are in the most solid position in the first two timeframes. A recent past example is when his son Jamie was in his senior year in 2007 he spent six months on the ISS with a caddy he coleman. Along with extensive recordings of their webcam interactions at the time, Cody and Jamie describe how they tried to maintain family ties during their long absence defined by technical delays and the usual irritation and anxiety. It offers a different perspective on what it was like.
Now we meet new astronaut Kayla and her husband Tom. Kayla, a former submarine officer, is the prototype for the astronaut Holland is trying to recruit. She is funny, introspective, and she and her husband have a solid relationship. But what if they can no longer speak daily, weekly, or in person?
Here, Mizrahi takes our stance on ideas that sci-fi aficionados are familiar with but remain in various stages of work in progress. Holland’s extensive team includes experts in virtual reality, artificial intelligence and even travel hibernation. This won’t help the family return to Earth, but it will save the astronauts from experiencing months of alienation.
Mizrahy does not have equal access to each part of this story. It looks like Kayla and Tom will be at the center of the series while Cady and Jamie are all the time, but their stories fizzle a bit because they actually spent a lot of time filming in space. , when it comes to the positive side, it quickly becomes clear that we are far from usable virtual reality and usable AI than movies and television have shown. It shows how long it takes for an astronaut to be effectively “cryo-ed” for travel. This documentary avoids practical alternatives that may work in the short term.
Sometimes footage from space stations and training is better, but Mizrahy isn’t very good at coming up with alternatives when footage isn’t available. There are some unimpressive CG renditions of deep space, but it’s a thriving attempt to add nothing. It resorts to half-baked partial reenactments and eventually gives up — it’s a shame because it’s a good story.
These limitations hamper the documentary as it nears the end of what plays like a truncated 87-minute running time. I can’t find a way to connect that idea to the larger conversation about what can be done.