Office_Shredder said:
I just saw the movie, and I can promise people there is no crazy sci-fi explanation for how anything happens. It is almost 100% realistic and the times when it is not are very minor and I think only noticeable if you explicitly are looking to criticize the film.
There's actually one big unrealistic depiction in this movie. The Hubble orbits with an inclination of 28.5 degrees (the same latitude as Cape Canaveral), the International Space Station orbits with an inclination of about 57 degrees (same latitude as Russia's primary launch site), and China's space station orbits at an inclination of around 42 degrees (presumably the same latitude as its launch site?). If you don't care about inclination, you tend to launch due East, which gives you an inclination that matches your launch site. It's impossible to launch directly into an orbit with an inclination less than the launch site.
What that means is that you can't go from the Hubble to the ISS to China's space station. Theoretically, if the orbits are close to the same altitude (which they are), the Hubble orbit could intersect both the ISS and the Chinese space station, but you couldn't dock with it. At that altitude, a spacecraft 's speed with be around 7700 to 7800 meters per second (around 15,000 mph). To calculate the closing speed, you'd need to use the cosine law. Suffice it to say that neither the astronauts nor the space stations would survive the encounter.
You basically have to be in the same orbital plane to approach at any survivable speed and, in this case, you're talking about three separate orbital planes.
Obviously, the film must take place in the future since the Chinese space station has been completed (it's currently just one tiny pod) and shuttle flights have been resurrected.
In spite of that, the film is very, very good and well worth seeing in IMAX.
