Hey Mr. Spaceman

October 23, 2009

I've blogged a couple of times about Quantum Quest: A Cassini Odyssey, an animated feature by Dr. Harry Kloor. The full, glorious 3D IMAX experience will make its debut next year, but those who crowded into the CUNY Graduate Center's auditorium Wednesday night got a sneak peek at the 2D lower resolution version of the completed film, followed by a short discussion with Kloor himself, and his special guest: space shuttle astronaut Dan Berry, who made four spacewalks during his NASA tenure. (By the way, the CUNY  Graduate Center has an amazing Science and Arts program and regularly hosts such events.) The event was part of the Imagine Science Film Festival, and sponsored by the Science & Entertainment Exchange.

Quantum Quest is the story of a plucky little photon named Dave who lives in the sun and is drawn into an epic galactic battle between good and evil as the forces of the Core (protons, photons and neutrinos) face off against the antimatter forces of the Void to determine the fate of the universe. The film combines state-of-the-art CGI with actual images taken not just by Cassini-Huygens, but also other NASA missions (SOHO, Stereo, Mars Odyssey, Venus Express and Mercury Messenger).

Berry had a whimsical explanation for how he ended up in science as an astronaut: "I really wanted to fly." As a child he jumped off everything he could -- so much so, his folks bought him a football helmet, "even though I didn't play football; they were just tired of all the trips to the ER." He graduated to building model airplanes, then attaching small motors to the models. "Once you start doing that, you start to figure out how they fly -- and you want to make them fly better."

The path to doing that? SCIENCE! Do that, and you can grow up to be an astronaut and help build an international space station. That was the culmination of Berry's lifelong dream, and I don't think I've ever heard an astronaut speak so eloquently about The View From Up There. It's not the same thing as being inside the small, cramped shuttle: the windows are tiny so you can't really get the full panoramic effect. Berry's spacewalks gave him the opportunity to get outside the shuttle, and the visor on his space helmet gave him a full field of vision of the Earth. "That moment of watching the Earth, the camera just doesn't capture the details, the beauty of Earth," he said, describing the "gemstone qualities" our pretty blue planet set brightly against the dark backdrop of space.

Both Kloor and Berry shared a childhood love for science fiction -- Kloor's mother was writing a science fiction novel while he was in the womb -- and in Berry's case, he played fantasy games with his siblings about traveling to Saturn and distant stars. He's a fan of Quantum Quest because of the way it combines real science with imagination. "A lot of science is about imagination, channeling creativity to explore the world," he said.

While much of the scientific content in Quantum Quest is highly accurate -- there really are lakes of methane on TItan, and protons really do surf the solar wind -- Kloor admits to adhering to the "Bugs Bunny Principle" for the basic premise. Once you've personified subatomic particles as Dave the Photon and Neutrino Rangers, who are able to converse, is it really worth being a stickler for "How can they talk to each other in the vacuum of space where sound waves can't propagate?" That is nerd-gassing taken to extremes. Kloor has done countless test screenings for audiences of all ages, and finds that "Kids never get confused between the fiction and the science." It's those with advanced science degrees that appear to have lost their willingness to suspend disbelief.

The film has an undeniable educational component, but it's not a straight documentary either. That is part of its charm -- and, one hopes, its effectiveness. "One kid might only learn that a photon is a particle of light; another might pick up on the fact that the four fundamental forces don't affect the Neutrino Ranger," says Kloor. And that's good enough for him.

By the way, among the many Hollywood luminaries who lent their voices to the film is Chris Pine, currently Tinsel Town's hottest young actor for his role as the young Captain Kirk in JJ Abrams' blockbuster Star Trek reboot earlier this year. The actor was unable to make the CUNY screening, but here's Pines chatting with Kloor by phone at this summer's ComicCon session devoted to Quantum Quest: