Took some time out today from reading the 18 research books (I'm not kidding) I have to read for papers to attend a lecture on science fiction in film, given by Gary Westfahl. It was...kinda surprising, to say the least. I felt that I must share.

He mainly classified sci-fi movies as "spacesuit" and non-spacesuit movies. A spacesuit movie shows people wearing spacesuits and dealing with actual facts of space, such as it's a vacuum, very hard to live in, a whole different environment we're not used to (a la 2001):

Non-spaceship films are ones in which the er, realities of space and space travel are not dealt with on a real-life basis. Star Trek was the show he particularly attacked for that. You either see the ship out in space (and never people!),

or they're shown inside the spaceship. And if anyone ever wants to leave, they've only got to get beamed out. No spacesuits, no realism, no fuss, no muss. "Space in your shirtsleeves," he called it. According to him, there are very few times when anyone in the series wears a spacesuit and goes into the vacuum. He said Gene Roddenberry sold the series by calling it "Wagon Train to the stars," and that with its use of seeing other people on screens on other spaceships, basically it's people watching space as if it's a television.

Then, it got really weird.

He said that he thought that the Challenger disaster was partially due to the popularity of Star Trek. He had no proof, but offered these tidbits as evidence of sorts:

1. Most astronauts in NASA are white males. However, the Challenger crew was surprisingly mixed in races and sexes- just like Star Trek's crew.

"The Challenger’s tenth mission, 51-L, represented the diversity of America as well as its commitment to education. The crew members were mixed in race, sex, ethnicity, and religion, much like the melting-pot of America in the mid-1980’s.(12) All different classes, religions, and races of Americans could relate with some member of the crew, broadening the appeal of this mission. Mission 51-L also reflected much more than the other missions of the era because it was an attempt to portray Americas efforts to fix some of the most detrimental aspects of our society; race inequality and deteriorating education. With such a diverse crew, NASA, in accordance with political leaders, aimed to portray the mission as the wave of the future where space exploration would be available to all classes of society. Further, President Reagan was trying to publicly appeal to pro-education with programs like the Teacher in Space program, at the same time as he was slashing educational funds." -Josh Madeira and Nick Rutherfurd

2. Oddly, liftoff was scheduled on a Tuesday- coincidentally, right before Reagan's State of the Union Address. According to Westfahl, it was rumored that the President planned to refer to the crew flying above them in his speech, and then cameras would show the crew up in space, watching the State of the Union. Westfahl also thinks that they chose to have the liftoff anyway despite bad weather because "the show must go on."

3. Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be broadcast into classrooms across America each day, showing lessons from space. Westfahl says the whole thing was designed to be a television show.

"Because Christa McAuliffe was among the crew, the media informed us not only of their names, but about their families and their histories. We witnessed their training. When the disaster occurred, we knew these astronauts. Americans had to come to grips with both personal and symbolic loss: the deaths of the astronauts and the anguish of their families as well as the destruction of all the space program represented."

Sounds cockamamie to me, but what interesting deductions... what do you think?