Russians are attempting to make history, apparently just to stick it to America... but what's new? 🙄
A Russian film crew just blasted off into space to film the first-ever action movie in Earth's orbit.
Which you have to admit, is pretty cool, right?
But this out-of-this-world movie is being filmed not only to make history, but also to take a little jab at America. The movie, titled "The Challenge," is an attempt to beat a Hollywood project involving Tom Cruise, NASA, and Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Tom Cruise won't get to the International Space Station to film his action movies until the end of 2021.
Cruise and [Doug] Liman are reportedly scheduled to make their first trip to the ISS sometime before the end of 2021. NASA'S administrator Jim Bridenstine said last year that the agency is "all in" on the production, adding that if Cruise can "[inspire] the next generation Elon Musk … then we're all for it."
In case you're wondering if this is really a jab at America, the Russians want to be crystal clear:
"Movies long have become a powerful instrument of propaganda," Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, said in June, arguing that the new film would help counter what he described as Western efforts to "humiliate" the Russian space program.
Actor Yulia Peresild, director Klim Shipenko, and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov launched into space to the International Space Station on Tuesday for a 12-day mission to film scenes for "The Challenge."
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This is a cool project but let's get real, this film is mainly for PR.
"This is supposed to inspire Russians, show how cool we are, but I think Russians have completely lost interest in the space industry," Konstantin Kalachev told AFP.
The actress and director went through an intense 4-month training course in preparation and after 12-days of filming in orbit the capsule is set to come back to Earth on Oct. 17.
July 20, 1969: Apollo 11 "landed" on the moon (shoutout to all my fake moon landing conspiracy theorists!)
July 11, 2021: First billionaire, Richard Branson, blasts off into space just because he can
October 5, 2021: Russians are cool so they film a movie in Earth's orbit
What's next?
