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Select Few Have Been Aboard... Now It's Your Turn
April 2002 (Newstream) -- Daily departures to the International
Space Station, via California Science Center IMAX® theatre,
will begin April 19, 2002 with the release of the new Lockheed
Martin-sponsored IMAX film, SPACE STATION, an out-of-this-world
adventure in 3D, coming soon to the California Science Center
IMAX Theater. This 3D epic allows viewers to float in zero gravity
and witness an endless cosmic panorama. Viewers can journey
alongside astronauts at the first international outpost in space.
The film is larger-than-life on the Science Center's enormous
7-story IMAX screen with the latest 3D technology and a 12,000
watt digital surround sound system.
From the makers of The Dream is Alive, Blue Planet,
Destiny in Space, and Mission to MIR comes another
strikingly beautiful and technically challenging film epic: the
first-ever IMAX 3D film from space. SPACE STATION is the
story of the greatest engineering feat since landing a man
on the Moon: the on-orbit assembly of the International
Space Station, as it travels 220 miles above Earth at
17,500 mph.
Produced by IMAX Space Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of
IMAX Corporation, and sponsored by Lockheed Martin
Corporation, in cooperation with the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA), SPACE STATION
builds on the IMAX-Lockheed Martin heritage that began
almost 20 years ago and now has produced five major
large-screen films.
SPACE STATION is the first cinematic journey to the
International Space Station (ISS) - where audiences can
experience for themselves life in zero gravity aboard the
new station. Transported by the magic of the IMAX®3D
technology, the audience blasts off into space with the
astronauts and cosmonauts from Florida's Kennedy Space
Center and Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome to rendezvous
with their new home in orbit 220 miles above Earth. Now
people of every age and language can work side by side
with their space-walking crewmates, building and inhabiting
this unprecedented structure in space. The International
Space Station is a technical marvel, unparalleled in scope
and challenge. The astronauts and cosmonauts share the
tensions and triumphs of their greatest challenge: hours of
painstaking and dangerous teamwork in the deadly vacuum
of space, to put the pieces together. The International Space
Station is not humanity's first space station, as the Russian
SALYUT and MIR, as well as U.S. SKYLAB preceded this
effort, however, it is a truly international effort to create a
permanent research facility in space.
SPACE STATION is the story of this unique partnership of 16
nations building a laboratory in outer space, a permanent facility
for the study of the effects of long-duration exposure to zero
gravity, and the necessary first step towards the global, cooperative
effort needed if we are to go to Mars someday. The new IMAX-Lockheed
Martin film is a home movie from humanity's home-away-from-home.
SPACE STATION challenges the mind and fulfills our human
need for space exploration. To produce its first-ever 3D film
from space, IMAX Corporation used innovative new 3D
technology to design and integrate two new IMAX® 3D
cameras into the Space Station and Shuttle to enable
astronauts to film this unmatched epic into 21st Century
space travel.
Twenty-five astronauts and cosmonauts, who were trained
as filmmakers, used specially-designed IMAX 3D space
cameras to shoot more than 66,000 feet, (or 12 miles) of
65mm film in space between December 1998 and July
2001. This IMAX adventure takes audiences on an
incredible cinematic journey of discovery from the Kennedy
Space Center to the International Space Station orbiting at
the speed of 17,500 mph, some 220 miles above Earth.
IMAX cameras traveled from Kazakhstan to Houston, from
Kennedy Space Center to 220 miles above Earth into zero
gravity to document for history one of the most challenging
engineering feats since landing a man on the Moon: the
on-orbit construction of the International Space Station.
At the speed of 17,500 mph, IMAX audiences will be able to
join astronauts and cosmonauts from the United States,
Canada, Japan, Russia and Europe, as they construct a
truly international outpost in space. SPACE STATION stars
astronauts and cosmonauts, who collectively have spent
thousands of hours in space. The IMAX cameras captured
seven Space Shuttle crews and two resident station crews,
as they transformed the International Space Station into a
permanently inhabited scientific research station.
For more than 15 years, Toni Myers and her colleagues,
Consulting Producer and IMAX Co-founder Graeme
Ferguson, and Director of Photography James Neihouse,
have been training astronauts to be cinematographers,
directors, sound mixers and lighting technicians. Last month,
NASA astronauts awarded James Neihouse with the
coveted "Silver Snoopy" Award, for his "continuing
superlative support to America's space program.
Through IMAX films, the world has had a window into the exploration
of space from both the technical and human side, giving NASA
the most successful and awesome outreach of any venue. More
than 70 million people worldwide have been able to explore space
through the IMAX-Lockheed Martin partnership.
California Science Center, located at 700 State Drive in
Exposition Park, Los Angeles, is open daily from 10 a.m. to
5 p.m., except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's
Day. Admission to the exhibitions is free. For recorded
information on IMAX show times, phone (213) 744-7400.
For advance ticket purchases, group rates, or to make
reservations for any visiting group of 15 or more (required),
call (213) 744-2019. Parking is available in the guest lot at
Figueroa and 39th Street for $6 per car. Both the Science
Center and IMAX Theater are wheelchair accessible. For
general information, phone (323) SCIENCE or visit our web
site at www.casciencectr.org.
