After classes tonight I'll be watching this cheerful gem. No, not the MST3K episode (one of the series' more contentious outings, because most consider Marooned / Space Travelers to be undeserving of mockery). Just the movie on its own merits, as a reminder that being stuck in the *right* company is everything.
Also: apparently Cuarón watched this dozens of times while making Gravity, so if it's as good as I've heard I'll have more reason to side-eye its high-budget inheritor. 😉 #CoSoFilms #SFF
@MLClark "Marooned" was released in 1969, two years after the Outer Space Treaty, which required spacefaring nations to provide mutual aid.
The X-RV is a riff on the Dyna-Soar, a lifting body developed by Boeing for the USAF. It was cancelled in 1963. Seeing it in "Marooned" probably pleased some people.
Launching through the eye of a hurricane is a "jumping the shark" moment for this space analyst.
Much of it was filmed on the Cape, so there's that.
😊 Enjoying it so far, and imagining how thrilling those images must have been to people still new to views from space. Great pacing & good soundscape (no country music!). Only two howlers thus far: no tethers on equipment/suits, and everyone outside at once.
One curiosity with the vernacular: Peck promises that the full resources of *the* NASA are working on the problem. Do you remember the switch to dropping "the"--or are there still a few today who use that more formal syntax?
@MLClark Funny you should ask ...
NASA's predecessor was the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The common reference was "the N-A-C-A."
When NASA began in October 1958, people naturally said "the N-A-S-A" but eventually started pronouncing it "NASA."
In this 1962 documentary, Kury Debus sometimes says "the NAY-suh," sometimes other pronounciations. (1/x)
@MLClark The book was published in 1964, so I suspect one common term had not yet become standard.
We often wonder why some acronyms are spelled out, while others are pronounced as a word. Why "V-A-B" and not "VAB"?
This September 1958 "Message to Employees of NACA" features outgoing Director Hugh Dryden and incoming Administrator Keith Glennan. They say "the N-A-S-A." (2/x)
@MLClark As mentioned upstream, "Marooned" the novel was published in 1964. Dyna-Soar was cancelled the year before, so it was still fresh when the author wrote it.
As for the McGuffin ... That engine used hypergolic fuels, which burn on contact with each other. All that has to happen is for two valves to open to let the propellants enter the combustion chamber.
I'm unaware of any time that happened. They've stuck open (Gemini 8) but never failed to open, to my knowledge.
Slumber calls. (3/3)
A few other clear irritants: the failure of the crew to report all anomalies (e.g., the still-green light), and to respond to the Cape's calls, long before they had the excuse of oxygen deprivation for not hearing commands.
But I do love a good *patient* hard SF film that teaches the audience to watch for details. Solid performances, and a clever reveal w/r/t whose wife was whose (their personalities first suggested other pairings).
Shame it didn't spark more follow-up ventures.
@MLClark I haven't watched "Marooned" in a *very* long time. I watched it primarily to reconcile with locations shown at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to see if I could identify the sites.
It definitely deserved the #MST3K treatment. 😊
We Cape historians are always on the lookout for vintage footage to show what it looked like back in the day, so "Marooned" has tha upside.
The MST3K version was the shorter Space Travelers, repackaged in a hokey way in the 1990s because the film was in public domain. I can see how, shortened and viewed through the lens of another CGI context, it might be easy prey, but putting aside a few technical gaffes, the full story and psychology of the piece was well done. And MST3K made fun of it for its attention to technical vocabulary, so maybe what it really deserved was a roast from a better informed space community. ;)
(Unlike Gravity, which gets the bulk of its psychology wrong along with the science!)