Solaria

Five decades in to the future and we have a raft of research stations in Earth’s orbit.  Yet the dwindling resources of the planet means that they are no longer economically viable (perhaps they are having a recession similar to ours at the moment, let’s hope it’s not the same one!).  All of the stations have been closed except Solaria – and time is almost up for that too.

This means an end to the work of Dr Alex Russell.  He has devoted his life to trying to find a way to wake up Rachel.  She is in a deep coma but is immune to the aging process.  If Alex can wake her before the ship arrives to retrieve him and close down the station, this breakthrough will change everything.  Yet the clock moves forward.

This short film really does have a twist in its tail but I must follow the River Song mantra and avoid giving it away! Solaria is Directed by John Hoey and written by Darren O’Connor and Craig Broughton.  Alex is played by Richard Sherwood and Rachel by Daria Kalista.

Timelapse: Earthereal

We see many images of the International Space Station but it isn’t often that we get an impression of how it moves.  This remarkable film by Adonis Pulatus takes the film shot by the International Space Station Expedition 30 crew flying over practically every square mile of the globe.

Pulatus downloaded the high-resolution image sets that have been made available by the NASA Johnson Space Center and constructed this short time-lapse film in hi-res 2K project format. The result is something else. Forget CGI – this is the real thing!

ISS Crew Sends Holiday Greetings to All

Way above your head, circling the earth, six people are having the most out of this world Christmas of their lives.  Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency offer Christmas and New Year's greetings to all the people on Earth from the orbital outpost on December 21 as they flew 224 statute miles above us.

Kelly, Coleman and Nespoli are part of the six-person crew that includes Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Kondratyev, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. In the unlikely event that any of the crew read this, greetings from Kuriositas and its readers!