t first I was hesitant to review this DVD version of the popular IMAX film. I don't have a big-screen TV, and even if I did, it would be like a postage stamp in comparison to an IMAX screen. So it was with some misgivings that I popped in the DVD. How would the viewing experience hold up? I needn't have worried. The footage of astronauts at work and play is so spectacular that the film would have held me transfixed even if I had been watching on a postage stamp.
At a mere 47 minutes, IMAX Space Station cannot hope to cover its subject in any depth, but it does provide a mesmerizing, fast-paced overview of the building and crewing of the international space station from early 2000 through August 2001. The ISS, as every earthling should know, is the first step on the path to Mars and beyond, a laboratory for the study of long-term human immersion in zero-g environments, as well as a nuts-and-bolts proving ground for techniques of space construction and industry. Although 16 nations are contributing to the ISS, the United States and Russia are the two powerhouses responsible for actually getting astronauts and station materials into orbit, and this fact is reflected in the makeup of the two three-person crews whose exploits the film follows, ISS Expeditions 1 and 2.
Expedition 1 was launched from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome on Oct. 31, 2000, and was commanded by an American, William Shepherd, with two Russians, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev. Expedition 2, launched from Kennedy Space Center aboard the space shuttle Discovery, relieved Expedition 1 on March 10, 2001, and was commanded by a Russian, Yuri Usachev, with two Americans, James Voss and Susan Helms. These six people, trained as pilots and engineers rather than cameramen, are responsible for most of the raw footage that director Toni Meyers had to work with. There are breathtaking space walks, equally incredible journeys through the narrow confines of the station itself, and views of the robot arm and other pieces of equipment in action, often set against the blue-and-white marble of Mother Earth, which sort of puts things into perspective. As one astronaut comments, "From space, you don't see any borders. You feel yourself part of humankind."
Next best thing to being there
Space Station will engross adults and enrapture children. There are moments of suspense, and not just during space walks: The plume of an ascending rocket has long since lost whatever innocence it once possessed, and each launch now carries a chilly frisson of tragedy regardless of the outcome ... as it should. There are moments of comedy, as when a male astronaut is loading various items onto the station from a docked shuttle, and a female astronaut floats up out of the airlock: "And sometimes we send them a woman," she cracks deadpan. There is even a priceless shot of crew-cut school kids on Earth questioning Commander Shepherd via short-wave radio that looks and sounds as if it were filmed in 1962.
We see the astronauts eating, brushing their teeth, doing all the mundane chores of daily life that take on so much unexpected grace in zero-g that it almost seems as if our species belongs there, that we have fallen to the heavy Earth by some grotesque accident and are only now on the threshold of returning to our rightful home among the stars. I wouldn't have imagined, before viewing this film, that the cramped insides of the space station could be as wondrous a sight as the vastness of space. And without the presence of humans, it wouldn't be. But watching the astronauts effortlessly glide and tumble in gravity-free ballet is a joyous revelation of the adaptability of our species.
Tom Cruise brings a little star power of the Hollywood kind to the project, but his delivery is on the bland side: You can never quite believe he's actually looking at the same things you are. But he does no real damage. Space Station is narrator-proof. It will remind those of a certain age why they wanted to be astronauts once upon a time, and, even better, it will instill that ambition in those young enough to aspire to it.
