Astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS) were able to have a special sneak peek of the upcoming space film, The Martian.
The Martian is a movie about an astronaut played by Matt Damon, whose mission to Mars ended up in a disaster, forcing his crew companions to abandon him on the red planet.
Apparently, these space experts love to watch films about space even though it may get terrifying. Earlier in 2015, the astronauts also had another space-disaster adventure pick for movie night, which is Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. In the said film, the spacecraft of the main characters were destroyed, leaving the crew to be stuck in space.
On Sunday, Sept. 20, U.S. astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren shared a photo of the ISS' movie night on Twitter, which garnered lots of interest all over the world.
A few weeks before the said movie night, both Kelly and Lindgren were able to read the novel by Andy Weir, which became the basis of the film. According to Lindgren, they both enjoyed the story and expressed their desire to watch the movie adaptation once it has been released.
The two real-life astronauts were also reportedly able to speak with Matt Damon when the actor visited the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. According to Lindgren, it was a neat conversation and that the experience was absolutely fun for him and Kelly.
Weir, the author of The Martian novel who contrastingly fears flying, originally planned to write the book as a technical piece of reading for technical individuals. For starters, the story was posted as a serial on his webpage; however, it turned to be a hit e-book at Amazon. Soon, publisher Random House showed interest and made it a full-fledged book. The book hit the New York Times best-seller list for 45 weeks and was heralded as the top trade fiction paperback of the said book rating body as of Monday, Sept. 14. The popularity of the novel did not stop there as Hollywood also came knocking down on Weir's door. The screenplay was written by Drew Goddard, who also worked on World War Z and Cabin in the Woods. According to Weir, he performed his research mostly on Google when he was writing the novel that surprisingly hit the right scientific information.
The Martian will be shown in cinemas starting Oct 2.
As the space mission of Kelly and his other Russian colleagues may contribute to the future human mission to Mars, he mentioned in a tweet how a movie about Mars may have a significant impact on them.
Photo: Paul Hudson | Flickr
