"First Orbit": The Mind-Expanding, Astronaut-Shot, Real-Time Film of What the Earth Looked Like to First Space Man Yuri Gagarin (Video)
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Tuesday, Apr 12, 2011
With direction from documentary film maker Christopher Riley, astronaut Paolo Nespoli carefully matched the orbital path of the International Space Station as closely as possible to that of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned orbit around the Earth. Using HD cameras pointing out of the station’s new giant cupola window, they made Red Orbit, a real-time recreation of what Gagarin saw from his Vostok-1 spacecraft as he hurtled around the planet at 14,800 miles per hour.
To complicate things further the film makers needed to film at exactly the same time of day that Gagarin made his flight; passing over the launch site, near the Aral Sea, at 06:07 UT and on into the night side of Earth over the Pacific Ocean, before emerging into sunlight again over the Southern Atlantic and passing across the whole African continent and the Middle East, and returning to the ground at 07:55 UT, just north of the Caspian Sea. Further calculations confirmed that opportunities to film this trajectory from the ISS at this time of day only came round every six weeks or so.
Combined with Gagarin’s original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard, the film’s a pretty moving piece of HD stream wonder, a beautiful tribute that you probably can’t appreciate if you’re reading this at work, especially if you work on Earth.
(Instead, you can watch it one of the screenings this evening that are conveniently located across the globe, or host your own.)
See also
Video: The Best Window in the Universe: Part Imperial, Part Rebel, Tiny Bit Colbert
Forget Avatar: Hubble 3D Is a Religious Experience
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