The Dream Is Alive
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The Dream is Alive is an IMAX movie, released in June 1985, about NASA's Space Shuttle program. The film was narrated by Walter Cronkite, and directed by Graeme Ferguson.
[edit] Synopsis
The movie includes scenes from numerous shuttle missions, beginning with footage of a de-orbiting space shuttle on its approach to Cape Canaveral, complete with sonic boom.
Mission STS-41-C, the 11th for the shuttle program and the fifth for Challenger is featured most heavily, beginning with the deployment of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) satellite. The capture and repair of the Solar Max satellite also receives a great deal of coverage, including a detailed overview of training for the mission in a large pool at NASA. This particular mission is of interest, as the first attempt at capturing the satellite failed, and a second attempt almost 12 hours later had to be made. That portion of the mission was a success, with the satellite being brought to the payload bay on the next attempt, and was repaired quickly by astronauts James van Hoften and George Nelson. Other STS 41-C mission activities included a student experiment located in a middeck locker to determine how honeybees make honeycomb cells in a microgravity environment.
Other shuttle missions are interspersed during the feature with the STS-41-C footage. Highlights include:
- STS-41-D: The first launch of Discovery, with footage of liftoff, the deployment of one of the three satellites on this mission, and special attention given to the novelty of the experimental OAST-1 solar array, which was a precursor to the solar arrays of the International Space Station. (These arrays were also a highly publicized portion of shuttle mission STS-116, during which the astronauts made multiple -- and eventually successful -- attempts to fold the arrays for movement around the station.) Footage is also shown of Discovery's landing and transport from its landing site at Edwards Air Force Base to Kennedy Space Center on the back of the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.
- STS-41-G: The sixth flight of Challenger, notable as the largest crew aboard the shuttle at that time, the first time two women flew together on the shuttle, and the first spacewalk by an American woman, Kathy Sullivan. Footage of Hurricane Josephine is also shown.
Additionally, a small amount of time is also dedicated to other aspects of the shuttle program, including:
- Other crew that work on the shuttle;
- The work of inspecting and replacing the shuttle's heat tiles;
- Training the astronauts must complete to prepare for missions;
- What the astronauts eat on spaceflights;
- How astronauts would bail out if an emergency occurred on the launch pad.
[edit] Challenger
The movie was produced and shot between 18 and 15 months before the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and includes appearances by the shuttle Challenger itself, and two astronauts Francis Scobee, and Judith Resnik, who died in the accident.
