cbspt005@abnjh.UUCP (Eric Carter) (05/10/84)
According to a UPI story, the first 27 minutes of film made in space with
the large 70MM IMAX movie camera was screened unedited on May 9 for the
first time for a small audience of NASA and Smithsonian Institution officials
at the National Air and Space Museum. The film was shot on the Challenger's
most recent mission. The astronauts have not yet seen the footage, but will
at a private screening next week.
IMAX Systems Corp. of Toronto plans to have the final half-hour movies ready in
the summer of 1985 after more footage is hot on the next shuttle flight in
June and on a flight scheduled for October. The film is a project of IMAX,
the Air and Space Museum, and Lockheed Corp.
"When the first frames of the high fidelity 70MM film appeared on the 50
by 75 foot screen at the museum, the audience gasped. It appeared as if
you were in the shuttle Challenger, looking through a rear cockpit window at a
bus-sized satellite suspended over the shuttle's cargo bay on the end of the
ship's robot arm.
Part of the blue,tan and white Earth and the blackness of space served as
a panoramic backdrop as the ship cruised at more than 17,000 mph and some
300 miles high.
The next frames showed the big satellite, called the Long Duration
Exposure Facility, coasting along beside the Challenger after the satellite
had been released by the astronauts. Then there were shots of tan western
Africa and the cloud-pocked South Atlantic Ocean.
One of the sunrises the astronauts saw every hour and a half also was
captured on film, beginning with various shades of blue topped by a layer
of orange gradually brightening until finally the sun appeared.
After a few inside shots of astronauts Robert crippen, Dick Scobee, Terry
Hart, James van Hoften and george Nelson, the camera showed the Solar Max
sun-watching satellite the astronauts retrieved. It was shown mounted in
the open payload awaiting repairs."
-Eric Carter
AT&T-IS
S.Plainfield,NJ
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