Return to Space
Director: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Year Released: 2022
Rating: 3.0
With the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "giving up" the shuttle program after 2011 (and still reeling from the loss of the Columbia in 2003), they turned to the private sector to look for developments in aerospace technology ... which left a huge opening for Elon Musk - our modern-day Thomas Edison - to get funding for his company SpaceX (billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are also working on their own projects). While I can't help but feel like it's a bit of an advertisement for the project - and a bit of chest-thumping "pro-America" propaganda as well - it's also an invaluable document for not only its footage aboard the International Space Station (ISS), but also a testament to how certain individuals can, through determination and an almost unearthly drive, enact changes that move us as a society into the future. It's nice to get a sneak peak into the lives of the astronauts themselves, as Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have to spend time away from their families ... and risk their lives for this "progress." I think Kubrick would have dug it.