NASA Believes 'Tomorrowland' Will Spark Interest in Exploration

If there is one thing that Disney's big budget movie Tomorrowland will do, then it will be to inspire young boys and girls everywhere to seek out real exploration.

According to Bert Ulrich, NASA's multimedia liaison for film and TV collaboration, who spoke with Blastr, the film will most definitely spark viewers' curiosity in what entails real exploration, the same way 2001 (the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie) and actress Nichelle Nichols did to them.

When NASA astronauts, scientists, and engineers are asked now what inspired them to pursue their current profession, a lot of them will credit the entertainment industry, said Ulrich, and that is why it is important for them to help make movies that will serve as an inspiration for future generations.

"There's a relationship with these types of productions and films in popular culture that gets people thinking in interesting ways. This movie does that, I think. It's a very inspirational film and a very hopeful one... although, legally, I'm not supposed to be endorsing movies," he said.

Ulrich said that they helped Disney review the script, and they added certain little tweaks for accuracy. Disney also asked if they could shoot some scenes at the Kennedy Space Center, and they agreed.

"We were concentrating on the NASA backstory about where Casey came from, which grounded her throughout the movie. Her father is a NASA engineer, and she is this brilliant young woman who was interested in engineering. Through her imagination and knowledge and ingenuity, she was able to save the world," he shared.

Through Casey, audiences will learn how to utilize inspiration, imagination, ingenuity, and knowledge, said Ulrich, and those are the things that are present among people working at NASA. They are continuously trying to gain knowledge and increase humanity's knowledge of what's out there, he said and at the same time, NASA is also learning more our own world.

Exciting things are up ahead for NASA, revealed Ulrich, since they have an upcoming journey to Pluto in the New Horizons mission on July 14. They are also preparing an Orion mission capsule that is being tested for eventual travel to deep space. They are even preparing for a journey to Mars, with a Mars 2020 rover being built.

"All of this is helping with the present, because we're gaining knowledge about humans, about what space exploration is about and where we can go as we live through the history of the space age. And we continually learn more," he said.