The gift shop will be closed on April 20th.

 

Sundance Film Festival loves 'The Mars Generation' shot at Space Camp

Released
By Lee Roop | lroop@al.com 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter 

Alabama's role in America's space history is heading back to the national spotlight in the new documentary "The Mars Generation" filmed in 2015 at Space Camp in Huntsville.

The film opened Utah's 2017 Sundance Film Festival last week, and it premieres on Netflix this spring. Utah audiences loved the story and the teenagers who came in their Space Camp flight suits to promote it.

The teens' journey through Space Camp frames the film. Their passion leaves little doubt that, as the press release said, "given the support and the opportunities they need, these kids can and will get humanity to Mars."

Mars gets the title and the kids are the film's heart, but the story is about America's space program and what happened to it. Time, Inc. funded the film, and director Michael Barnett said Time wanted him to, "Tell the story of space right now."

Von Braun history

That story is familiar to many Alabamians, especially those who live in Huntsville. It starts with Wernher von Braun's World War II rocket development for Hitler and moves through Von Braun's worldwide celebrity and declining influence after the Apollo moon landings.

When Apollo ended, the film says, Von Braun had the plan, the team and the infrastructure to take America to Mars. But then-President Richard Nixon said "no." Nixon's reasoning - that it was time to develop NASA's discoveries for Earth use  - sounds as weak today as it did then.

"NASA lost its way," scientist Michio Kaku says in the film of what came next. He and others portray the space shuttle program that followed Apollo as "a financial sinkhole" and ultimately "a carousel of flights around the Earth for 20 years" that got humanity no farther into space.  

NASA's big new rocket, the Space Launch System, gets plenty of screen time, and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Marshall Space Flight Center Director Todd May show up to represent the agency. But director Barnett lets celebrity scientist Bill Nye express doubts that the new rocket is on schedule or adequately funded.

Heart of the film

Barnett's real mission in "The Mars Generation" is telling the story of humanity at risk from a civilization-ending catastrophe. Our destiny is Mars and beyond, the film argues, and it suggests commercial rocketeer Elon Musk will get us there.

What makes these arguments come alive is Space Camp and the teens who come there from around the world. Barnett follows one team as it escapes from a flooded helicopter, launches an "eggstronaut," and conducts a simulated mission to Mars.

"Despite all the cool simulations and things you saw in the movie," Veeraj "Raj" Majethia said of Space Camp in an audience Q&A, "the most important thing for me was the social phenomenon that was created when a bunch of kids, boys and girls, met up with the mutual interest of space.

"Honestly, the conversations we had from, not Day One, but Hour One Minute Five, were like ridiculously in-depth," Majethia said. "I learned more about space in that bunk room than in the previous rest of my life. It's great."

That's a commercial for the camp experience that delighted Dr. Deborah Barnhart, Space Camp CEO. She came to the premiere and had a message for her Alabama team from Utah. "Prepare to get busier," Barnhart said.