Science on Screen: Gravity

Date/Time
Date(s) - 05/12/2015
7:00 pm

Location
Cinema Arts Centre

Category(ies) No Categories

Science on Screen: An Initiative of The Coolidge Corner Theater  with major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Gravity starring Sandra Bullock & George Clooney

With special guest David Oberhettinger, Chief Knowledge Officer of the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory who will explore some of the major scientific themes in the multi Academy Award winning film Gravity, such as: “Why do we ex­plore?” and “Would it be less risky for robots, instead of humans, to do the exploring?”

Members $10 / Public $15. Tickets can be purchased online, www.CinemaArtsCentre.org or at the box office during theater hours.

“Gravity”:

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) in command. On a seemingly routine mission, disaster strikes; the shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalski completely alone—tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. The only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space. (USA/UK, 2013, 91 min., PG-13, DCP | Dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

Guest Speaker David Oberhettinger is the Chief Knowledge Officer of the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the primary NASA center for deep space exploration. JPL has presently had over 40 missions in development or in operation, including the Curiosity rover on Mars and the Voyager spacecraft now in interstellar space. David is pleased to be part of the only team that will be the first to explore the solar system (and beyond). His additional duties for the JPL Office of the Chief Engineer include managing the Engineering Standards Office and the Spaceflight Engineering Research Program, and chairing the Lessons Learned Committee. Before JPL, he managed the Spacecraft Engineering Technology Department of Northrop Grumman. He presently serves on the Board of Directors for the 2016 Reliability & Maintainability Symposium. In his spare time, he flies search and rescue for the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary.