Space Entertainment Enterprise, a UK-based company, has announced that it plans to launch a film studio in space in 2024. Axiom Space will build the space station module. Axiom provides spaceflight services to individuals, corporations, and space agencies.
As well as hiring Axiom Space to build a space station, the ambitious company founders Elena and Dmitry Lesnevsky are also behind the plans for a much-discussed Tom Cruise shoot, which will be filmed when the new space station module is launched in orbit in about two years.
Studio in outer space
The studio will be called SEE-1. Some press releases indicate that it will be the world’s first commercial space station. This is not strictly true, as NASA has a commercial use policy for the ISS (International Space Station) and a price list for space station resources. Axiom is building the studio set to be a commercial module of the ISS.
However, what is unique about SEE-1 is the module is intended for the film and entertainment industry. It will ‘allow artists, producers, and creatives to develop, produce, record, and live stream content which maximizes the Space Station’s low-orbit micro-gravity environment, including films, television, music and sports events,”
Although the co-founders won’t be able to boast that they created the first film in space as Russian actors beat them to it, and there have also been other documentaries filmed in space, achieving the development of a space station module as a film studio for acting and sports events will be a first.
There are a lot of unknowns
It raises some interesting questions about the future, such as the challenges of filming in space and what sport events can we expect to see in Space? How will doing sports in space be different from doing sports on earth?
What games would people like to play in Space? Astronauts are not unknown for adapting conventional games in space and coming up with a few of their own.
Christer Fuglesang, the first Swedish astronaut to fly into space, tested a Frisbee to see ‘if he could break the world record for time aloft — 16.72 seconds — which he did, aided by zero gravity.‘
Japan’s Taka Doi tested whether a boomerang would return to him when thrown in zero gravity; he said it did.
A new sport in zero-G
Garret Reisman, American engineer, and former NASA astronaut, says another sport was accidentally discovered while astronauts were filling up water bottles. “We realized how massive these bags were, and we started tossing them kind of like a medicine ball,” Reisman said. “Then you realize you could toss and catch and go for a ride on this big thing as it takes you away. There are all kinds of possibilities, and if there are any ideas out there, let us know, and we will try it.”
There will be some known challenges to filming in space, such as pixel damage caused by cosmic radiation. Filming equipment is intensely tested with radiation by NASA before it is determined to fit for purpose.
Let’s hope that the filming challenges will continue to be overcome as new frontier of entertainment are discovered in space. It promises a very interesting future and interesting discussion of what sports the public would like to see being performed up there.
Feature image credit: Axiom Space/Space Entertainment Enterprise
