Other than all the trivial details like food, atmosphere, waste management and orbit correction, probably the most difficult part of maintaining an orbital space station is making sure that your astronauts don’t go insane like the astronauts in the documentaries Sunshine, Event Horizon, Pandorum or Solaris (both versions). Care is taken to ensure that the physical and mental needs of the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are attended to, and this includes piping the latest entertainment up to them.
To that end, the six men currently stationed on the ISS aren’t going to let a silly little thing like being suspended 408km above the surface of the Earth in a hyperexpensive metal shoebox stop them from seeing the newest Star Wars movie.
As initially reported by Robin Seemangal, the astronauts are set to get their very own screening of The Last Jedi, which was confirmed to Inverse by NASA public affairs officer Dan Huot, but with no indication as to when it would be happening:
[I] can confirm the crew will be able to watch it on orbit. Don’t have a definitive timeline yet. They typically get movies as digital files and can play them back on a laptop or a standard projector that is currently aboard.
Inverse is hazarding a guess that the film might be sent up with the SpaceX Dragon capsule that’s headed to the ISS on Friday, presumably because there are complicated technical reasons or weird copyright reasons prohibiting them from just shooting it up on their extraordinarily fast internet connection.
The station is well-equipped to play films and the astronauts have access to an extensive-ish library of 500 movies and TV shows. The collection includes such incredible cinema classics as Christmas With The Cranks, Meet The Spartans, Little Fockers, and Battleship proving that either NASA has nothing but contempt for the astronauts or that just because you’re smart enough to be an astronaut doesn’t mean you are a genius.
