James Cameron and ‘Avatar’ Help Promote NASA’s Exploration

Can’t get enough of “Avatar?” Now, you can see James Cameron and scenes from the 3-D epic on NASA TV and elsewhere, promoting the many contributions of NASA’s Earth science program that helps enable exploration of our home planet, as well as making the public more environmentally aware. NASA has 14 science satellites in orbit making cutting-edge global observations of the entire global system including the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, snow and ice.

“When NASA ventures into space, it remembers to keep a steady eye on home,” Cameron said. “Its fleet of Earth-orbiting satellites constantly reveals our whole planet: its remotest places, its mysteries and the powerful influence of humans.”

The movie “Avatar,” depicts the fictional planet of Pandora and is coming back to theaters this week. The story centers on a beautiful planet threatened by forces that want to exploit its natural resources.

3 Replies to “James Cameron and ‘Avatar’ Help Promote NASA’s Exploration”

  1. Cameron is da Man! He goes a bit too far in his eco-enthusiasm, but its not too far off. (For example, Earth as “network” would only apply in a process sense of interconnected processes, or over ecologies.) Mainly, it works! [Well duh, “Avatar” showed that he knows what he’s doing.]

    “exploit its natural resources” Thanks for _that_ reminder, that was about one of the few great suspense of disbelief stumbling blocks of the trend breaking movie in just that respect.

    [Overlooking the mind reading/influencing technology, room temperature superconductors, and the diversity of biological body plans here. OK, so it was still a lot of those. Just not the hail shower that an ordinary scifi provides.]

    It doesn’t make economical sense, unless the “unobtanium” was both as unique the name suggest _and_ somehow vital. (Room temperature super conductor energy savings? Simply add more solar/fusion power to make up for inefficiencies!) We will never know, probably because it was too iffy any attempt of explanation was left out of the movie IIRC.

  2. Would this be the same James Cameron who wanted to ‘call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads’ challenging them to a debate which would be streamed live over the internet, later demanding cameras be limited, media access blocked, and finally canceling altogether after one of his opponents was already in the air on the way to the conference?

  3. Yah I agree with OM. I think Cameron should have made the case as to WHY unobtainium was so vital. It seems the great expense to get that much Sol equipment over to Alpha Centauri would have been mind-bogglingly costly. Makes me feel Nuclear reactors could have pumped out unobtainium at cheaper rates that a mission to AC.

    One other thing that puzzled me was why some tech seemed so advanced, yet others were so primitive in comparison. Didn’t Jake say it took six years to get to AC? AC is 4.3 light years away. Just how fast did they have to go to get there so quickly? Sounds like at mid-journey they would have been going at a pretty good relativistic clip. What kind of tech can do that? If they had this tech, why were they still toting projectile-based weaponry? The movie confuse me with a lot of these examples.

Comments are closed.