On January 28th 1986, the Space Shuttle
Challenger broke up 73 seconds after the twenty-fifth Space Shuttle launch,
killing all seven of its crew members. The disaster was, at the time, the most
catastrophic loss in NASA history and is still remembered as one of the most
disastrous and heartbreaking days in human space exploration. Following the
tragedy a Commission was set up to get to the bottom of the disaster and
uncover the cause of shuttle failure. The Commission contained former and current
astronauts including the first American woman in space and the first man on the
moon. It also contained a former Secretary of State, Air Force generals and
physicists. One of these physicists was perhaps the most famous of the
twentieth century, Richard Feynman. Feynman was crucial to the Manhattan
Project which developed the atomic bomb and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in
1965 on the back of numerous papers and discoveries.
The Challenger
(formerly titled Feynman and the
Challenger) is a made for TV movie which first aired on the BBC on March 18th
2013. The film focuses on the role Richard Feynman (William Hurt) played in the
Commission and the lengths that he went to; to prove what was really behind the
Shuttle’s failure that January morning. The film intersperses real footage,
including that of the actual event with dramatisations of Feynman’s quest for
answers which are taken from Feynman’s autobiographical book What Do You Care What Other People Think?
The movie is well researched and generally very well made and features a
terrific central performance and compelling story.
I was born just under a month after the Challenger disaster
but it was a part of my childhood. My parents had a huge poster on the stairs
of one of the houses I grew up in of the crew and the Shuttle which used to
intrigue and haunt me. As I got older I became very interested in Space
exploration and in my twenties threw off the horrors of High School Physics
lessons to become interested in the world of the micro and macro, of String
Theory and Quantum Fields. I am to physics what a football fan is to football.
I’m fascinated by it and get engrossed in small details but put me on the field
and I’d lose the ball faster than the speed of light. I am an enthusiastic
amateur. All of the above is a very long and drawn out way of saying that the
plot of The Challenger is of great interest to me. Its principle character
Richard Feynman is a man who I have some but not much knowledge of and most of
my knowledge comes from the odd popular science book, YouTube clips and
occasional popular science lecture delivered by the likes of Prof. Brian Cox,
Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre as well as the comedy of Robin Ince. I was
fascinated then to learn more.
The film introduced me to a Feynman I wasn’t expecting to
meet. The Feynman I’ve seen footage of was controlled and firm and had a
distinguishable but refined Queens accent.
William Hurt’s Feynman is much more ‘Californian’. His accent is slightly
different and his portrayal is more agitated and messy. I don’t mean any of
this in a bad way though and think it matches the state that the man was in
both mentally and physically. Although slightly dishevelled, Hurt has more than
a passing resemblance to the scientist he is portraying. What is obvious from
the film is that the budget doesn’t match that of an average theatrical film.
There are corners cut in various places which sometimes detracts slightly from
the movie as a whole but luckily the story is strong enough that it rarely gets
in the way.
The plot is deeply fascinating and encompasses physics,
ethics, finance and politics. All four combine in a tense and agitated melting
pot which forms the Commission and it soon becomes apparent that Feynman is
coming at the case from a different angle to the majority of the Commissioners.
Early on he is frustrated by a lack of pace in the meetings and then he is
stifled by the rigours step by step process. Feynman takes it upon himself to
dig around and visits various NASA facilities in which he is viewed with
suspicion by scientists and technicians scared to be held accountable. This
sets up more conflict in the Commission and Feynman finds himself short of
allies. He does however find a friend in Air force General Kutyna (Bruce
Greenwood) who, like the audience by now, is sympathetic to the Physicist’s
cause. What follows is a slow unravelling of the facts which without Feynman
may never have come to light.
The film treads a thin line between telling the truth and
attacking the likes of NASA and Solid Rocket manufacturer Morton Thiokol much
as Feynman did himself. Although my limited knowledge gave me some insight into
the disaster and subsequent findings I was fascinated to be taken on the
journey towards the discovery and felt that the film blended this with
Feynman’s health issues very well. It was clear from the outset that this was
about Challenger first and his health second, something which again mirrors
Feynman himself. Even the title of the movie can refer to the craft and the
man. Occasionally I found myself questioning cover-ups and discoveries which
seemed a little too dramatic and possibly exagerated but my knowledge doesn’t
extend far enough to know what was real and what was invented. It is my belief
and hope though that the vast majority of what I saw on screen was real. The
actual footage certainly was and despite having seen it numerous times, it’s
still heartbreakingly sad.
Overall The Challenger manages to get to the heart
of the disaster and uncovers a man who deserves to be better known than he is.
William Hurt is superb and the plot is fascinating in every detail. I had a few
problems with realism and dramatic licence and the budget caused some issues
but overall I’d recommend the movie to anyone with a passing interest in NASA,
the disaster, Richard Feynman or just good detective thrillers. Like most good true stories it made me want to learn more for myself which on its own proves the movie was a success.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment