Inside the Space Station (2000)
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Pierre de Lespinois
Written by Stephen Jay Schwartz
Narrated by Liam Neeson

Features:

• Photo gallery
  
• Director's Q&A (text)
  
• ISS timeline
  
• Featurettes
  

Anamorphic: N/A; presented in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Rent It.

Arthur C. Clarke once said: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program." And forget about what a silly concept it is--he's dead on right. Thus it's encouraging to catch this short documentary piece about the International Space Station, especially in this day and age of countries seeming to be in a race to kill each other. It's nice to think that we can at least do something in some modicum of a spirit of cooperation. And so we are, and this program does a decent job of outlining it.

This sucker's going to be about the size of two football fields, and it's going to be fully visible Earthside when they get it finished. It's going to have unprecedented effects on all manner of technologies, across the board. But not content to just deal with the present state of the station, the program goes further and answers questions you probably weren't even aware that needed asking. For example, suppose there was some kind of major malfunction with the station? What happens to those aboard? Are they just completely, thoroughly screwed? Luckily, no. And even more lucky, their "escape craft" is being tested as of the time of this documentary.

There are some very cool bits beyond that--including the space arm, which is probably the coolest thing to ever come out of Canada. There's also the Neutral Buoyancy Tank--which is roughly the size of Rhode Island. Well, sorta. And there's also nifty CGI graphics to show you what the Space Station will be when it all grows up.

Just as cool are the "featurettes," which are really just very short "bumper" videos, three minutes and under each, shown on the different flavors of the Discovery Channel. My personal favorite involves just what it takes to film in the aforementioned Tank, since you're doing hi-def underwater deep enough so that colors get screwed. Very enlightening.

Lots of cool details, which leave you wanting more than the fifty minute running time. Because of the short duration, I'm not sure I can recommend this as a purchase to anyone but the diehard space enthusiast. However, any fan of sci-fi or NASA would do well to snag it for a good price. However, just to play it safe, I've classified it as a rental. But still. Remember those dinosaurs.