1. It's called science FICTION for a reason. It's about hypothesizing and dreaming, not history and cold hard facts. Science fiction has inspired people to create many of the technological breakthroughs we have today and will have tomorrow.

Posted at 3:39PM on Jul 12th 2008 by Camperton

2. I don't think it's bad that sci-fi movies use unrealistic elements in them. I mean, they are there for entertainment value. Whether it's beaming or lazer swords, younger viewer audiences seem to enjoy them. There are millions of Star Wars and Star Trek fanatics out there. People don't watch these movies because they want to learn about the space program. They watch them because they like the effects and their use of fantasy. Sci-fi films aren't meant to give inspiration for younger audiences to join the space program or even to have an interest in it. It's all about the entertainment.

Posted at 4:10PM on Jul 12th 2008 by Bella

3. How is he wrong? I don't see your argument.

Posted at 5:09PM on Jul 12th 2008 by RF

4. He is not blaming starwars and startrek in that quote. I think the more appropriate targets of his criticism (and very rightly so, if i may add) are movies like Mission to Mars. Those movies portray astronauts going to the mars as if it's a piece of cake.

Posted at 5:59PM on Jul 12th 2008 by VP

5. I would title this article "Web Nobody Ignorantly Disses Brilliant Historic Hero." Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin will likely still be remembered by billions in the year 4008 (if we survive that long) while none of us are likely to be remembered by more than a handful the Tuesday after we’re gone.

I am fortunate to have met Aldrin at a book signing before an event in Huntsville to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the first Moon landing. I saw all 3 Apollo 11 astronauts later but Aldrin was the only one promoting a book and available for handshakes and autographs. I saw him again on the 30th anniversary ten years later (along with 4 other Apollo astronauts) at the Kennedy Space Center where I also got to spend nearly 45 minutes talking with Gene Cernan, the last man on the Moon, which is the title of his excellent book, btw. Do you realize that next July will be 40 years since we landed on the moon and this December marks 36 years since that LAST man walked on the Moon. That’s a pretty good reason to be frustrated. There are a lot of folks who share responsibility for that idiocy and Hollywood has to carry a big part of the blame IMHO.

There are only 21 men who have been to the Moon and just 12 who have walked on it. Of that number 6 are gone, 3 of the Moon walkers and 3 of those who ”only” circled the Moon. Quick, how many of them can you name without looking them up? Or can you name the first mission to the Moon? How about the final crews of the shuttles Challenger or Columbia or the first man in space? I'm betting most folks on this site can name all of the members of "The Breakfast Club." Isn't that sad?

Aldrin is arguably the best engineer of the early US astronaut corps (Mercury through Apollo-Soyuz). His innovations during the Gemini program made it possible to actually do work during a spacewalk, not just float around. That was a critical step without which we couldn’t have gone to the Moon. His recent work promoting Lunar and Mars cycler craft offers some of the most interesting possibilities for near term space transportation to those bodies, particularly for significant numbers of people, not just gajillionaires.

I share Aldrin’s frustration with the recent Hollywood SF movies that deal with space travel. They’re enjoyable, but they’re fantasies, not SCIENCE fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some of them (I was in the first audience to pay to see Star Wars, a benefit several weeks before the premiere and I was overwhelmed), but they should be so much better at the science. They should be doing things from “classic” SF authors like Clarke or some of the Niven and Pournelle collaborations ("Footfall," "Lucifer’s Hammer" or "Fallen Angels" to name 3) or stuff like Homer Hickam’s “Back To The Moon” I met him at the same event as Cernan) or something about what will come out of Burt Rutan’s work with Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic in the years to come. I link “Fallen Angels” in my mind with Ben Bova’s “Privateers” and “Big Lifters,” by Dean Ing, which I combine into a “rogue capitalists in space” trilogy. Each would make a great movie of near future space flight. Niven has tons of “belter” stories about a near future frontier society built in the asteroid belt that would make for a fascinating HBO or SciFi series. His ”Inconstant Moon” was one of the best of the Outer Limits revival and his 'Soft Weapon" is recognized as one of the better Star Trek stories, even if it was for the animated series.

I must disagree with almost every point (though not the tone of) VP’s post. I think the comment on beaming is clearly a reference to Star Trek and I’ll specifically say that the “science” in Star Wars is grotesquely bad. Even if he isn’t including those films in his criticism I am. The Human driven space travel in “Mission To Mars” is actually pretty solid, scientifically. Astronaut Dr. Joseph P. Allen was their technical consultant (bio at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/allen-jp.html) and they got that stuff right. The “face on Mars” crap and the stuff at the end were totally bogus, but they were the “McGuffin” needed to tell the rest of the story. It wasn’t a successful movie but that’s probably not because of how realistic the space flight stuff was. Or perhaps the realism WAS the problem and serves as proof of Aldrin’s premise.

I’m equally disappointed in the “science” of recent non space travel SF, particularly the PC crap like “Day After Tomorrow” or “An Inconvenient Truth.” Leni Riefenstahl at least had the decency to apologize for “Triumph Of The Will.” Robert Heinlein often said that the Earth was too fragile a basket for the Human race to keep all of our eggs in, but not because of a hoax like anthropogenic global warming.

We need someone to start creating stuff that will inspire a new generation the way Heinlein inspired 75% of the folks that got us to the Moon.

(I forgot the email and name on my first try... sorry 'bout that)

Posted at 10:47PM on Jul 12th 2008 by Josh

6. I love the idea of space travel but it's kind of stupid to invest billions in taking a little robot to Mars when people in this world are starving to death. We need to set our priorities straight.
Once again, someone tries to blame movies for the general public's lack of civility and interest in science. Older people wish the best on a world that eventually will always surpass them, we are all heading in that direction. There is always going to be someone interested in the stars and movies, to each it's own.

Posted at 11:39PM on Jul 12th 2008 by Mr. R

7. I've heard several tales of Aldrin being bitter about being #2 on the moon instead of numero uno. This fits right in with those tales. Josh, I bet there aren't even a billion people RIGHT NOW who could name the SECOND man on the moon! You're a space geek, congratulations. No one else gives a damn about it.

I'll take science fiction, or science fantasy or whatever it's labeled, over science reality. Give me ships that go seven times light speed over a fragile space shuttle taking week-long errand runs to the lame ISS. The reality of space up til now, major accomplishments excepted, has been underwhelming. The hundreds of billions of dollars we've spent sending folks into space has netted us some "wow" moments, led to some technological advancements, and broadened our insight into the nature of the Universe, but still... spread the activity out over the 50 years that mankind has been sending crap, and people, into space and it's pretty yawneriffic. Even the Apollo program would be a boring spectacle if you had to endure it in real time. It would be the equivalent of driving from Seattle to San Diego then over to Orlando just to go on one Disney ride.

Without a doubt the best thing to come from our explorations of space so far has been that memory foam bed crap they sell on late night infomercials. Maybe that's the stuff Capt. Kirk bones those green alien chicks on.

Posted at 2:44AM on Jul 13th 2008 by kevjohn

8. Aldrin makes a really good point. The technology in science fiction has leapfrogged so far ahead of actual science that it's become pure fantasy. It's easy to forget that once upon a time, this stuff introduced people to grand ideas and fed their curiosity rather than just being the action movies with bigger weapons and explosions it's devolved into.

>It's called science FICTION for a reason.

Someday, someone is going to tell me why that's a better argument than "it's called SCIENCE fiction for a reason." It's not terribly difficult, in most cases, to do a little research and keep the science plausible, which can often lead to more tension and doesn't turn off the part of the audience for whom ridiculous science sticks out like a sore thumb.

Posted at 9:40AM on Jul 13th 2008 by Jason Seaver

9. Wow, I wasn't expecting to read a diatribe about the greatness of the space program in the comments section.

The main issue is that Aldrin seems to be blaming science fiction movies for children's lack of interest in the space program. That, and perhaps he's not happy with the label "science fiction."

The reality is that movies, great, good, okay, or awful, HAVE NO EFFECT ON CHILDREN'S LACK OF INTEREST IN THE SPACE PROGRAM. The only possible effect they could have is to make children interested in learning more about space and what's happened in the real world.

The lack of interest probably comes from the fact that, as Josh so kindly pointed out, we landed on the moon almost 40 years ago. By now means am I diminishing what an amazing accomplishment this was, but it's not new and exciting anymore, nor is it recent.

Trains, planes, and automobiles were once considered marvels of technology by everyone. While there are still those that are passionate about them (and thankfully so, because they continue to innovate them), most people just consider them modes of transportation.

Obviously space travel is in an entirely different category, but again, the lack of interest is due to how long it was since someone walked on the moon. And that has nothing to do with science fiction movies. Is the government not supplying NASA with the money it needs because they would rather watch "Star Trek?" No.

http://www.slowclapchildren.blogspot.com

Posted at 2:20PM on Jul 13th 2008 by Jonathan Kuhn

10. I'm sick and tired of the "we need to get our priorities straight...we shouldn't be spending money on space when we have so many problems here on earth...". Let me clue you in...if we didn't spend one dime on space, people would still go hungry, need health care, die of disease, start wars, etc. We didn't HAVE a manned space program between the last Apollo-Soyuz hookup in the mid 70's and the shuttle program in the early 80's....and nobody thought..."wow, we've cured the world's ills because we're saving soooo much from not putting people in space". A great country needs great challenges...both social and otherwise. Space is part of the "otherwise". This country spends more money on twinkies and Big Macs than on science...where's the priority there?!

Posted at 2:03AM on Jul 21st 2008 by Jerry T