# Tom Cruise working with NASA on a film aboard ISS **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 5, 2020, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219 "2020-05-05T20:01:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/41 "2020-05-08T00:21:15Z")
Why go to the Moon but not land there? I mean, Mars, say, I can see doing that with: It’s pretty hard to land on and take off from Mars. But a lunar landing and takeoff is easy, compared with getting all the way out there to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/42 "2020-05-08T01:31:37Z")
I assume landing on the Moon would drive up the cost of the flight a lot. And of course it adds risk because you might get stuck there. In Apollo they could not test fire the engine on the top of the lander before it took off. Maybe now they would do a test fire. Moon landing has been done but that does not make it easy or cheap. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/43 "2020-05-08T01:38:33Z")
A space station is the last place you’d want someone chewing the scenary. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/44 "2020-05-08T02:08:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But a lunar landing and takeoff is easy, compared with getting all the way out there to begin with. Delta-v from lunar orbit to the surface is ~1.8 km/s, and the round trip is 3.6 km/s. You also need to get in and out of lunar orbit, adding another ~1.4 km/s. In contrast, a free return trajectory to the Moon and back (that swings by the Moon but doesn’t enter orbit) is around 3.2 km/s. It’s not at all easy to add another 5 km/s on top of that. And there are no freebies with aerobraking around the Moon. Mars landing, while challenging in a technical sense, is “easy” in a physics sense–the aerobraking allows landing with \<1 km/s delta V (and no insertion costs, either). Taking off is harder, at 4.1 km/s, though there are more resources available and so propellant manufacture is more feasible than on the Moon. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/45 "2020-05-08T02:11:57Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > sometimes they use a “vomit comet” which is a plane that gives short weightlessness and they can film there . They did that for Apollo 13. > > [Reduced-gravity aircraft - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced-gravity_aircraft) Not sure what that has to do with this thread but, if you want to pay the hefty ticket price, you can take a ride on [Zero-G](https://www.gozerog.com/) (basically the Vomit Comet for tourists). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2020, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/46 "2020-05-08T02:15:22Z")
As for Tom Cruise, if he can wrangle a flight to the ISS in the guise of doing a movie I say I’d try to do the same. Getting a trip to space is no easy thing (yet) and if I could convince NASA to send me so I could do a podcast or something and they said yes I’d happily go while everyone screamed what BS it was in envy. ---
**Author:** ![cannon\_gray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannon_gray/32/6030_2.png) [@cannon\_gray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cannon_gray)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219/47 "2021-01-11T09:33:42Z")
I think NASA has even more advantages of such activity because it attracts society’s attention to ISS and maybe NASA can have some other budget except government for space missions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tom-cruise-working-with-nasa-on-a-film-aboard-iss/853219.md?page=2)