Top 8 Moon Landing Movies

Top 8 Moon Landing Movies Top 8 Moon Landing Movies Top 8 Moon Landing MoviesThe filmmakers of the 20th century used a combination of science and imagination to create a future vision of space travel. At a time with many unanswered questions about the reality of space, movies depicting rockets and the Moon helped to spark the curiosity of audiences. Early films depicted outlandish theories of the Moon, based on fantastical theories such as aliens inhabiting the Moons craters or being able to breathe on the far side of the Moon. As our knowledge of space and astrophysics grew, so did the imagination of filmmakers and audiences alike. Mid-twentieth century films incorporated innovations like rocket technology and space suits while still pushing the boundary of imagination with nuclear-powered spaceships and living in space stations.The best science fiction takes what we know and push the boundaries of what is believable. According to J. Bret Bennington, chair of the Department of Geolo gy at Hofstra University and co-director of the One Giant Leap Apollo 50 conference hosted by the Hofstra Cultural Center and the Cradle of Aviation in Garden City, N.Y., what makes for good science fiction is fantasy based on truth. Astronomers were trying to justify their conceits, and I believe the mark of a good science fiction movie is not that, that its scientifically accurate but that its believable, Bennington said. If you can find a hook of truth to piste your plot elements on, making it not just pure fantasy, then your audience will come along for the ride.Recommended for You NASAs Alien Tire A Trip to the Moon (1902)Cinema was less than ten years old when Georges Mlis directed, produced, and wrote A Trip to the Moon. The silent movie depicts a group of astronomers shooting themselves into space via a cannonand includes the famous image of the spaceship landing in the Man in the Moons eye. Soon after their arrival, the Moons inhabitants surround the explorers, who flee by tipping the capsule over a ledge and dropping it into space. The French film, which drew inspiration from two of Jules Vernes classic novels, is now considered one of the greatest films of the silent era. The point of engineering interest is the method of space travel the ship is a ballistic projectile, since the movie was made before the key rocket technology developments of the 1920s. Woman in the Moon (1929)Fritz Lang wrote and directed Woman in the Moon two years after he made his famed Metropolis. The film shows a group of civilians attempting to reach the far side of the Moon in search of gold that can be mined and brought back to Earth. The movie ends with two crew members staying behind after the space ship suffers damage to its oxygen tank. Woman in the Moon is considered to be the first depiction of rocket technology on film. What impressed me the most was the classic rocket ship design, Bennington said. The rocket ship makes a hard landing, creating a huge crater, and the entire crew survives this. Also, the depiction of the surface moon in this film is very similar to what was captured from the Apollo missions. The movie also depicts weightless space travel, with the crew members using foot straps to move around the ship while in space. Destination Moon (1950)Based on the novel Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein, Destination Moon is an attempt to realistically depict space travel. Unlike previous films, Irving Pichels movie accurately conveys the distance to the Moon (240,000 miles) and the need to travel more than seven miles per second to escape the Earths gravitational pull. Destination Moon focuses on captains of industry who create their own space program after government-funded projects are shut down. The launch of single stage atomic powered spaceship is done quickly to avoid both public protests and government intervention. While private space efforts seemed fanciful during the space race of the 1950s and 1960s, today compa nies such as SpaceX and Boeing have started to commercialize space transportation. From the Earth to the Moon (1958)An adaptation of Jules Vernes novels From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1870), the movie tells the story of two industrialistsmunitions producer Victor Barbicane and metallurgist Stuyvesant Nichollwho accidentally invent a new ceramic material strong enough for space travel. The men fund the building of a spaceship and, accompanied by Barbicanes assistant and Nicholls daughter, who stowed away, launch themselves toward the Moon. I was surprised, particular in these movies before 1960 or that take place before the 1920s, how many of them involve ordinary people going into space, Bennington said. unterstellung arent highly trained specialists. The concept of the astronaut doesnt come along until the 1960s. Because the movie tries to stay faithful to its source material, it depicts ballistic projectiles, rather than rockets, as a means of space trav el. The Mouse on the Moon (1964)While many of science fiction movies are serious in tone, Richard Lesters The Mouse on the Moon stands out as a comedy about the space race. (The next year, Lester would direct A Hard Days Night.) In the film, the small country of Grand Fenwick cons the United States and USSR to donate funds to its space program, while diverting the money to repair the royal castles hot water plumbing. By the end of the movie, Grand Fenwicks lonely science officer, with the help from the Prime Ministers son, builds a viable rocket using wine as fuel and blasts off to the Moon. When they arrive, the Fenwick explorers meet up with U.S. and Soviet astronauts, all of whom arrived at roughly the same time. The three nations try to claim the prestige of reaching the Moon first. This movie is very tongue in cheek and plays on the political race to reach the Moon, Bennington said. The spacecraft is really interesting as it is one of the few to depict a multi-stage rocket w ith a separate lander. First Men in the Moon (1964) Based on the fantasy novel of H.G. Wells, First Men in the Moon tells the story of Joseph Cavor, inventor of a substance that can deflect the force gravity. Cavor applies his substance to a spherical spaceship, and along with two companions, heads to the Moon. On the Moon, the trio encounters an indigenous, insect-like species that inhabits subsurface structures. This movie depicts the debate geologists had, prior to the data from 1960s orbital surveys of the Moon, of whether craters were impacted structures or volcanoes, Bennington said. Mutiny in Outer Space (1965)In this low-budget film, two astronauts return to Space Station X-7 after landing on the Moon and collecting geological samples. On the station, a fungus from the samples infects the crew and starts to spread. The movie takes inspiration from the series of documentaries on space travel produced by NASA and Disney, Bennington said. The big-wheel-shape look of the s pace station is based on early conceptual designs NASA had made at the time. This type of space station shows up again in 2001 A Space Odyssey. While most of the action takes place on the station, the anfangsbuchstabe Moon landing scene depicts a craft similar to the future lunar module. Countdown (1968)Previous movies had to make educated guesses about space technology, but Countdown was filmed in cooperation with NASA and used several pieces of existing Gemini program technology. The films premise is that, in parallel to the public Apollo program, NASA had a secret project to send a one-person spaceship to the Moon if it looked as if Soviet cosmonauts might get there first. The complication was that the single astronaut would have to spend a year on the lunar surface until a rescue mission could be launched. In addition to the hardware, one realistic element of the film was the political debate about who should be the first person to land on the moon. In the movie, the trained Air Force colonel is replaced by a civilian at the insistence of the White House. The next year, two Americans landed on the Moon Buzz Aldrin was an Air Force colonel, but the one who first stepped on the surfaceNeil Armstrongwas a civilian.Carlos M. Gonzalez is a special projects editor.

Toni Morrisons brilliant approach to work-life balance

Toni Morrisons brilliant approach to work-life balanceToni Morrisons brilliant approach to work-life balanceWriter Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize in 1993, and she worked hard to get there, starting by cleaning houses when she was a child. The experience taught her a lot about putting work in its place, which she wrote about in arecent piece in The New Yorker. Morrisons brief essay discusses her fathers way of encuraging her to keep her priorities straight and made sure her supportive home life was the center of her world. Its a necessary read in our workaholic era in which vacation days are rare and work martyrdom is rife.Youre either working on your own dream, or someone elsesMorrisons essay illustrates how important it is to stay grounded in your self-worth, and to remember what you bring to the table when things get tough for you in the working world.She recalls her experiences cleaning a womans house to earn money for herself and her mom as a child in the 1940s.Morrison enjoye d making money for herself, but mora so because ofhow she could help her parents out The pleasure of being necessary to my parents was profound. I was bedrngnis like the children in folktales burdensome mouths to feed, nuisances to be corrected, problems so severe that they were abandoned to the forest, shewrote, also mentioning that the affirming gestures from the grownupsseemed to say that she was adultlike.But as she improved, the housework got harder, and even though she wanted to say something to the woman,she wasscared of being let go.Indirectly citing thework martyrconcept, Morrison told her dad about the issues she had getting the work done one day when they were in the kitchen.In a moment of tough love, he said,Listen. You dont live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.Morrison went on to present what his words meant to her in a numbered list, but the points can also be backed up by research.Commit to self-improvementThe first message Morrison got from her dads words was Whatever the work is, do it well- not for the anfhrer but for yourself.This applies to tackling new skills for personal gain.Heidi Grant Halvorson, a motivational psychologist and author of the HBR Single Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, told the Harvard Business Review about identifying the learning style that best suits you in a 2012 article about nailing a new skill.Reflect on some of your past learning experiences, and make a list of good ones and another list of bad onesWhat did the good, effective experiences have in common? How about the bad ones? Identifying common strands can help you determine the learning environment that works best for you, she told the publication.More importantly, external pressure will never push you as much as your own desire for growth and purpose. As musician Pharrell put it in a recent speech, dont do things for the applause.Your workis not your entire identityThe second message Morrison g ot from her dads words was You make the job it doesnt make you. The fourth message Morrison got from her dads words was You are not the work you do you are the person you are.But these two go hand in hand- you are bigger than your job, but as easy as it is to think thatyour job truly defines you, theres a whole lot more to you than what goes onfrom 9 to 5. More importantly, if you want to get succeed, you have to see your own worth as determined by something other than your performance reviews, your raises, or encouragement from colleagues.Gallup reported in 2014 found that 55% of Americans said they get a sense of identity from their job, compared to 42% who said their work is simply something they do to make money.But this concept wasnt new in 2014- the organization added thatthese results have been consistent throughout multiple Gallup polls since 1989.So no matter how hectic things get for you in the office, stay grounded by thinking about who you are, what you want, and what makes you unique. Jobs come and go, even the great ones, but our spouses, kids, parents and friends arent going to remember us by our excellent meeting memos or slick PowerPoints.Create a life outside workThe third message Morrison got from her dads words was Your real life is with us, your family.Dont confuse your day job for your whole life- remember what people who mean a lot to youbring to your experiences outside of work, and try to draw a boundary separating work life from home life as much as possible.A 2015 international EY surveyof people in eight countries found that 33% of respondents reported that managing work and family life got tougher over the previous five years.Two of the top five reasons were 49% of participants reporting that my salary has not increased much, but my expenses have and 48% of them reporting that my responsibilities at work have increased. Other factors were an increase of things to manage at home, having one or more kids, and clocking in more hour s.Yet, as work demands more of us, we have to find ways to retain our own sanity - not just after work, but during it. Use lunch breaks to connect with colleagues, sure, but also try to touch base with family or friends during that time, in texts or emails. Make future social plans during 15-minute breaks through the day instead of bouncing around social media. Schedule picnics, concerts, and activities that make your time off richer than a few more hours on the couch. The more you have a sense of yourself within your family and community, the less youll depend on work to give you everything. Thats clearly advice that has served Morrison - one of the most talented and successful American writers - well.

Robots Modeled on Bees Sense Rather than Think

Robots Modeled on Bees Sense Rather than Think Robots Modeled on Bees Sense Rather than Think Robots Modeled on Bees Sense Rather than ThinkMany people run in fear from the common honeybee, but a joint project between Cornell University and Harvard University is embracing the insect. Specifically, Professor Silvia Ferrari, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Cornell who is part of the project, sees a great verstndigung im strafverfahren of robotic potential in them.Ferrari says the project, which originated at Harvard and has the RoboBee as its centerpiece, comes from the work of people like Robert Wood, a professor of engineering and applied science at Harvard.He has been a part of a new way to fabricate robots through folding and unfolding technology, similar to origami but allowing for the ability to fabricate everything at once the chips, the sensors, the actuators, and mora, by basically stamping this device into flat-like panels, she says. Once its all fabricate d, the robot unfolds all the pieces like origami and pops up with all the pieces in place.Robots right now have to think about what to do, using all that processing. This way can allow them to avoid that. Prof Silvia Ferrari, Cornell University Researchers at the Wyss Institute are developing the RoboBee, a manmade system for use in agriculture or disaster relief. Image Wyss Institute at Harvard UniversityFor You Learn the latest about breakthroughs in robotics.The computing power needed to truly mimic a bee would be immense, and would require far too large a system to fit into a small robot. So Ferraris group has tried to add to the project by delving into neuromorphic systems and CMOS resistors. The idea behind their efforts is to build chips that function more like biological brains. They need much less power and can be built at a smaller scale, with sensors processing but using a lot less data, she says.You just have too much power being used when it doesnt have t o be, she says. Robots right now have to think about what to do, using all that processing. This way can allow them to avoid that. Look at the cockroach. It has hardly any brain and its very good at avoiding predators.Airflow sensors, which look like hair, similar to an insect, are used to detect information about direction of the airflow over the wings because one aspect of the project is to try to make the RoboBee robust enough to fly through strong wind gusts, for example. It has two wings that can be independently actuated and there are also sensors onboard that detect changes in luminosity.For sensor motor processing, RoboBee does not only possess normal control systems but sensor processing algorithms as well, to use both proprioseptive (responding to internal stimuli) and exteroceptive (responding to external stimuli) sensory feedback to control the robot. They want to focus on safe navigation and tasks such as searching for a target, perusing the target, and following the ta rget, she says. Meaning the applications of the robot are numerous.Also, onboard data has to be processed and you see these colorful algorithms but they are very slow in producing the answers that can be used to actually move around, she says. Because of this, robots are very far off from the sensory motor skills and sensory motor learning that you see in humans and in animals.Buzzing ForwardThe next step for the group is to further develop the control algorithms and work on acrobatic maneuvers, for example, a moving surface like a window or door thats swinging where the RoboBee can try to get through.Even for conventional robots, underwater vehicles, and drones, they have more power being used than should really be required for their missions, she says. Less computational power means possibly smaller batteries, smaller robots, and less onboard computing hardwarealso letting more computation onboard be devoted to other tasks. There is the potential to have entirely different robots in the future.Eric Butterman is an independent writer.Read MoreRobots Tighten Their GripRobotic Dance Instructors Hit the FloorRodents Help Robotics Leap Forward