How scientifically accurate is ‘Contact’, according to Nasa
Being based on a novel by astronomer and scientist Carl Sagan, there was no way Robert Zemeckis‘ Contact was going to be anything other than painstakingly scientifically accurate, which did admittedly slow down the pre-production process to such an extent the film lost its original director.
Sagan took a story credit on the feature-length adaptation of his novel, which only gained further authenticity when he incorporated the studies of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne into the screenwriting process, with Roland Joffé drafted in to direct. He dropped out shortly after the start of pre-production, Zemeckis turned it down, and then George Miller was brought on board.
The Mad Max creator ended up being fired by the studio when he insisted he needed more time for rewrites, which saw Zemeckis circle back around to complete the game of directorial hot potato. Thankfully, there were no more hiccups along the way, with the engrossing family drama turning out to be a sizeable success at the box office.
The story finds Jodie Foster’s Ellie Arroway interpreting a message originating from beyond the stars, opening the doors to a philosophical, spiritual, and existential rumination on the implications – and complications – that could be born from such an event. The notion of extra-terrestrial contact is one that can’t be discounted completely, but Nasa’s problems with the film had nothing to do with the content.
In fact, the space agency named Contact as one of its favourite and most accurate features after polling a crack team of its own scientists, while the SETI Institute called it “indescribably more accurate in its depiction of SETI than any Hollywood film in history.” And yet, there was still minor controversy to be found.
In general, Nasa couldn’t get enough of Zemeckis’ slow-burning narrative and thought-provoking exploration of the potential divides that would arise between science and religion if aliens were proven to be real beyond any reasonable doubt. Still, the organisation’s minor quibble came from the inclusion of a suicide pill.
The movie’s Nasa advisor Gerald D. Griffin was adamant that the powers-that-be had never issued any astronaut a cyanide capsule to consume in the event of an unexpected eventuality, with the easiest way for any spacefarer to do the deed being a simple cutting off of their own oxygen supply.
On the other hand, Sagan spent decades as a consultant advisor to Nasa that included the space race years when manned craft visited the Moon, and he insisted that astronauts were in fact given cyanide pills for every single mission that had ever been undertaken beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
For his part, Zemeckis decided that because nobody really knew for sure, he kept it in anyway for what was one of the very few times Contact depicted the process of interstellar navigation with anything less than 100% certainty. That was Nasa’s only bugbear, so all things considered it was pretty pleased.
