As a student majoring in chemistry I’m always looking for new films/media that involve science. Here are 5 really good movies that are all related to space travel, and space adventures.
1. Interstellar
Director: Christopher Nolan
Why you should watch: Facing a dying Earth plagued by global crop blights and dust storms, former NASA pilot Cooper is recruited for a desperate mission to find a new habitable home for humanity. He leads a small team of astronauts through a newly discovered wormhole near Saturn, embarking on a journey that forces them to grapple with the severe, time distorting effects of extreme gravity. As decades slip away in mere hours on alien worlds, Cooper must make heartbreaking sacrifices to transmit crucial quantum data back to his daughter and ensure the survival of the human race.
2. The Martian
Director: Martin Scorsese
Why you should watch: When a fierce storm forces his crew to evacuate, astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead and left stranded alone on the hostile surface of Mars. Armed with only his scientific ingenuity and a limited supply of rations, he must find a way to signal Earth and survive long enough for a rescue mission. Meanwhile, millions of miles away, an international team of scientists and his former crewmates work tirelessly against the clock to figure out a way to bring him home.
3. Alien
Director: Ridley Scott
Why you should watch: An absolute classic of a space movie, the seven-member crew of the commercial starship Nostromo is prematurely awakened from cryo-sleep to investigate a mysterious distress signal originating from a desolate, uncharted moon. While exploring a derelict spacecraft, a crew member is attacked by a parasitic organism, unwittingly bringing a terrifying, rapidly evolving alien predator back onto their own ship. As the creature begins hunting them down one by one, the surviving crew must navigate the dark corridors of their vessel to destroy the alien.
4. Gravity
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Why you should watch: During a routine spacewalk, a catastrophic chain reaction of orbital debris destroys a space shuttle, leaving a medical engineer and a veteran astronaut completely stranded in orbit. With their tether to Earth severed, rapidly depleting oxygen levels, and no way to communicate with Houston, they must work together to survive the terrifying emptiness of the vacuum. Their desperate fight for survival forces them to make perilous, high-stakes maneuvers between damaged space stations in a final bid to return to Earth.
5. Apollo 13
Director: Ron Howard
Why you should watch: Based on a true story, the film follows three American astronauts on a mission to the moon that quickly turns into a desperate fight for survival when an oxygen tank explodes mid-flight. With their spacecraft crippled, power failing, and carbon dioxide levels dangerously rising, the crew must rely on their own ingenuity and the efforts of NASA’s Mission Control to jury rig life saving solutions. In a race against time, the team on the ground and the men in space work together get back to earth.
Wyatt Bull is finishing up his first year as a freshman at Bloomington and couldn’t be more excited for next year.
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