Marvel Comics characters have plenty of experience with space stations. The Lighthouse, Avalon, and Sentinal Space Stations have housed all kinds of intelligent minds but until now, the real-world International Space Station hasn’t housed any superheroes (that we’re aware of). That’s about to change. Marvel has arranged for the crew to get a special screening of The Avengers.
SpaceX’s Dragon just completed the first successful mission by a commercial company to join with the ISS yesterday. You may remember they were carrying the ashes of Star Trek’s James Doohan, among others, but it seems the pop-culture connections in space are not done.
Marvel announced today they’d be uplinking The Avengers film to the ISS through NASA’s Mission Control in Houston. “This screening continues Marvel’s collaboration with NASA, which began during principal photography of Marvel’s The Avengers when the film shot at the Space Power Facility at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio,” according to the press release.
“These are the types of things that help to keep the crew connected to home, which is a huge morale boost while being away for long periods of time,“ said Dan Cook, Psychological Support Coordinator with Wyle, a contractor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The ISS is orbiting 220 miles above Earth and currently has a crew of six including two NASA Astronauts, one European Space Agency Astronaut, and three Russian Cosmonauts. I’m curious to know if they’ll have subtitles or dubbed dialogue for the individuals whose first language isn’t English.
Either way, I think this is a really cool idea and what a treat it’s going to be for them! Let’s just hope they don’t decide to send them a screening of Prometheus next…
(via Marvel)
