In Vulture’s video series, Expert Witness, we ask scientists, historians, and other professionals to give Hollywood movies a good old-fashioned fact-check.
Cryo-sleep, alien life, black holes, and traveling at light speed appear in almost every film about space. But how realistic are these depictions about what actually occurs beyond Earth’s atmosphere?
In this episode of Expert Witness, we turned to Mike Massimino for answers. Massimino is a former NASA astronaut who now teaches mechanical engineering at Columbia University and also serves as the senior advisor for Space Programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.