When Tom Cruise is brought to the International Space Station to shoot the first movie in space from an altitude of over 400km above Earth, the gap between science fiction and reality will be increasingly narrowed.
Colin Burgess, author of the famous book “The Greatest Adventure: The History of Human Space Exploration”, once said: “Since the ancestors of humanity first set foot on Earth, they have been fascinated by the beauty of the mysterious Suns and Moons up there.” But “reaching for the stars” was still a distant dream at that time.
Realizing the Dream
A significant milestone in the journey of space exploration was on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the Moon, completing the mission of the Apollo 11 flight. However, this had been imagined by authors like Jules Verne long before. The image of astronauts flying to the Moon in an aluminum spacecraft from Florida appeared multiple times in Verne’s works.
Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon in 1969. (Source: Quartz)
In 1956, the documentary “The Forbidden Planet” set in space was also released. A year later, the space age officially began when, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, into orbit.
Two years later, the United States formed the Mercury Seven group consisting of seven professionally trained astronauts. In 1961, the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1, sending Yuri Gagarin to become the first human in orbit. Shortly after, NASA also sent astronaut Alan Shepard into space.
From Earth to the Moon and Beyond
At the time the hit series “Star Trek” was dominating in 1966, the space age was still limited to the Moon. After the success of Apollo 11, public interest in space exploration gradually declined.
NASA’s budget at that time was also cut. However, there remained a connection with giant planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Consequently, the launches of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 took place to continue the mission of exploring the Solar System.
Image of the Voyager 2 probe in space. (Source: Pixels).
The “Short-lived” Era of the Space Shuttle
The launch of the space shuttle in 1981 by NASA rekindled public interest in space exploration. However, after the tragic loss of 14 astronauts in 1986 and 2003, along with the enormous costs, the decline of the space shuttle was inevitable.
Instead, NASA conceived the idea of developing a highly competitive private space industry. After a decade of funding test flights, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program finally succeeded in the summer of 2020 when billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX spacecraft officially transported two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
Subsequently, the Falcon 9 rocket also launched satellites and spacecraft into orbit and returned to the launch pad. This laid the foundation for SpaceX’s head to discuss life on Mars as depicted in the movie “The Martian.”
SpaceX successfully transported two NASA astronauts to the ISS. (Source: SpaceX)
A New Era of Space Tourism
SpaceX is currently collaborating with NASA to send the first woman and the first person of color to the Moon in 2024.
Meanwhile, billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson have both successfully completed suborbital flights, marking the beginning of a new era of space travel. The world’s top billionaires are entering a new race, striving to commercialize “superior” space tourism journeys in the coming decades.
The race to commercialize space tourism is beginning. (Source: Axios).
And when Tom Cruise is taken to the International Space Station aboard Elon Musk’s SpaceX ship later this year to shoot the first movie in space from an altitude of over 400km above Earth, the gap between science fiction stories and reality will continue to narrow.
