Cady Coleman On ‘The Space Between Us,’ Space, Living On Mars [Video Exclusive]

Cady Coleman, former NASA astronaut, served as advisor on the new film The Space Between Us. She reveals the details with with uInterview in this exclusive video interview.

‘The Space Between Us’ Interview

The film is a romantic science-fiction film directed by Peter Chelsom, starring Asa Butterfield and Gary Oldman. The story follows a boy, Gardner Elliot, who was born on Mars, but eventually forms a friendship online with a girl from Earth named Tulsa. This friendship leads Elliot to want to return to Earth, and he is given the chance when he turns 16. Upon landing on Earth, he discovers that his organs cannot survive Earth’s gravity. Elliot and Tulsa then attempt to see as much of the Earth as possible, before it becomes too late.

Exclusive Video Interview With Cady Coleman

Coleman has extensive experience living in space, having been on board the space shuttle Columbia and the International Space Station. She has logged more than 4,000 hours in space.

In an exclusive interview, Coleman gave us uInterview her take on how the film did in its portrayal of space.

“I did love the way they showed zero gravity. It was something that was really magical when I was up there, the fact that you can’t walk anywhere — you fly from place to place,” she recalled.

“There’s a scene when one of the characters first gets to experience that and you can see the wonder and joy at just feeling that way, that I actually still miss,” she continued.

Coleman wants  to dispel any misconceptions people may have about space travel. “I guess it’s just the fact that living in space is a reality right now. We do have a space station, we’ve been living up there for more than 15 years, and actually more than that on other space stations. So it’s a reality, and yet, what we want to do is go further, and Mars is the logical place to think about living,” she told uInterview. “People just sort of want us to be there. But the steps are slow. And that’s why a movie like this, I think it can sustain us.”

Coleman believes movies about space travel can impact space missions in real life. “When a movie like The Martian came out, we can’t directly correlate it, but our astronaut applications went from 6,500 to 18,000. Because suddenly, living on Mars was real,” Coleman said.

The former NASA astronaut especially enjoyed her time with Butterfield, who plays the protagonist, Elliot. “I did get to talk to Asa Butterfield, and it was fascinating. First of all, because he’s British in real life,” she said. ” And I think he realizes that by making a movie like this, where it’s going to seem really real to so many people…that we could be living on Mars, that he’s really changing the future. And I think that seemed important to him.”

So when does Coleman thinks the first human will set foot on the red planet? “I would start with the number 2030. And when you say ‘get to Mars,’ we’re actually already there,” she said. “We have robots there, we have rovers… we just haven’t sent people yet.”

She stressed the dangers involved with sending someone on such a mission. “It’s never gonna be safe. So that takes a while, and questions that the movie makes look kind of simple, are actually pretty hard,” she stated. “We’ve got a ways to go.”

The Space Between Us, opened nationwide on Feb. 3, and is based on the story by Stewart Schill, Lewis and Allan Loeb. 

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