Ex Astra, Ars
NASA should become an arts patron.
I thought about this watching The Core Saturday, which like I said had a pretty pro-NASA slant (I saw at least two former astronauts in the "Thanks" section of the credit, and think the agency was probably there also). That said, other than possibly fostering a little positive sentiment, it does the agency little good, in that it does not promote awareness for anything we're actually doing.
One idea I had would be for the agency to make a feature film about a Shuttle mission, possibly the next one. Basically do something similar to some of the Imax movies NASA has partnered on, only make a feature film instead. Take a camera up on a Shuttle flight, and film some pre- and post-mission stuff as well. Possibly even hire an effects house to soup it up a bit, combining real launch and landing footage with effects sequences, creating something a la Apollo 13. The one problem is, to be able to sell it nowadays, you need a plot. And movies like The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, and (now this movie sounds odd in this list) Space Camp are the rare contemporary-esque space movies that, like The Core, don't require either aliens or a bad guy. Oh, I guess also Armageddon. For every one of those, there's plenty of Space Cowboys, Mission To Mars, and even 2001-type stuff that needs either a villian or an alien to work.
That's why STS-114 might work for a movie, since you have the dramatic tension generated by STS-107. Plus, you've got interesting characters like Eileen Collins, the first female Shuttle commander. I wonder how hard it would be to sell such a movie?
To me, the Shuttle has such untapped potential for motion picture stardom, which you see a bit of in things like The Core, Space Cowboys, and Armageddon. It has the huge advantage of being both science-fictiony and iconic, since it is both a working spacecraft and a national landmark. It's just a matter of doing it right.
Another option, and possibly a more potentially succesful one, is for NASA to become an arts patron, giving genius-grant-type awards to people involved in certain projects, such as novels, or scripts for movies.
The projects would have to meet two criteria: They would have to be positive and possible, which is to say, pro-spaceflight, and based in real science achievable in the next 20 years.
The idea would be to support mass media that would raise public awareness of manned spaceflight, to remind people just how cool this can be.
Such an endeavour could even help pave the way to Mars: One of the biggest things standing in our way right now is a lack of political support, which in turns answers to public opinion. Books, movies, TV, etc. that won over public interest in a Mars project could actually help make such a thing a reality.
Such an idea is not completely without precedent. NASA paid for the "Way Up There" song to celebrate the centennial of flight, which was also used as a memorial for the STS-107 crew. NASA has also met with Hollywood to discuss working together before. In fact, the ideas discussed then could even help make scripts generated through a system like I'm proposing more likely to actually make it to the screen.
Anyway, just an idea.

:: :: 11:33 :: David :: [permalink] ::