LiveChat Round Up - June 21, 2012

By Jim Gerard, NASA INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL

NASA has long been intertwined in popular culture, and one place where this is very evident is in the movie theater. Yesterday, I had the privilege to present "NASA@the Movies" to 42 members of the Online Learning Community. We began by talking about various ways that science is portrayed in film, and the conceits used by science fiction to advance a story or provide an exciting experience - things like sounds in space, time travel and anti-gravity, for example. NASA however is mostly told through 'real' fiction and non-fiction tales, and not always in a positive role.

So what were some good examples? I would heartily recommend Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff as good portrayals about the times and people involved in the early space program (but watch out for The Right Stuff's portrayal of astronaut Gus Grissom). While many situations and events are edited and condensed you get a real feel for the times.

What about bad examples? Well, I'll leave that to you to watch in the archive available on Monday! And, if you have your own opinions about these movies, use the link below to comment in the Discussion Board. And don't forget to take the quiz for 25 points, found in the Discover page!

Next week, we are happy to welcome back to our LiveChat the guys from the NASA EDGE podcast, Chris and Blair. They will be with us to chat about their experience covering the transit of Venus from Hawaii. Sign up now on the OLC Discussion Board!

Discuss this blog here: http://tinyurl.com/bloginspire