With the Matt Damon-starring Elysium hitting theaters tomorrow from Sony, fans will be treated to that rare beast: a (somewhat) hard science fiction story, as opposed to the fantasy-and-mythology-tinged versions that tend to break the bank.With Ender’s Game on the horizon, Elysium may be a good indicator as to how such a film is likely to open–although it’s hard to compare the two, since Ender’s Game is at once a more well-known commodity and one whose stars are far less marketable than Damon (Harrison Ford notwithstanding, of course, but he hasn’t really been a key part of the PR campaign so far).But–how “hard” is the sci-fi here? Could any of the technology seen in the film actually exist?Well, obviously it’s impossible to project the dystopian world around it, but NASA’s Mark Uhran, former Assistant Associate Administrator for the International Space Station, can speak to some of the science and technology used in the titular space station. He is the world’s foremost expert in all things Space Station as he was the Manager of Space Station National Laboratory–and we were lucky enough to speak with him briefly earlier today about the film, rock science and his 28 years working for NASA on the space station program, from which retired as director last year.Last year, filmmakers contacted him asking about the technical feasibility on these space stations–he doesn’t have a paid relationship with the filmmakers, but just kind of kicked around some ideas with them, since he enjoys science fiction and they wanted to see whether their science held water.
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