Snip from an item I filed for Wired News today:
After gliding 100 million miles and plopping on the red planet's surface inside a giant puffball, the robot Spirit unfolds, then basks in sunlight like an origami bird.
Back on Earth, a NASA control room is jammed with scientists. They alternately cringe, calculate and cheer while Spirit and its younger sibling, Opportunity, meander on Mars and snap photos like bug-eyed robot tourists.
And that's just the first 20 minutes.
An eye-popping documentary about NASA's Mars Rovers is about to hit IMAX screens, and it's directed by George Butler, most famous for introducing the world to Arnold Schwarznegger in Pumping Iron.
"It's like Star Wars meets The Right Stuff," blurted one audience member at a Los Angeles press screening of Butler's Roving Mars.
Link to Wired News story, and here is the movie website. Opens at IMAX theaters throughout the US on January 27. Philip Glass composed the soundtrack.
Image: I think this was my favorite scene, because it was just so darn weird — and accompanied by awesome swoosh-ker-THWUMP sounds that made the whole theater shake. Here, the rover Spirit plops down on the Martian surface, protected during landing in a gigantic airbag. (courtesy Walt Disney Pictures).
After you see it (or before!), you should read the book Roving Mars by Steve Squyres. There's an audio version now, too.
