New York Comic Con 2021 is underway and some of the brilliant minds behind the new Disney+ original series Among the Stars got together to discuss their experience in making this new show.
- The panel included:
- Ken Bollweg – Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer Project Manager, NASA
- Jessica Meir – NASA Astronaut
- Heather Bergman – Extra Vehicular Activity Artemis Tools Lead, NASA
- Dr. Samuel Ting – Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Physics, MIT
- Chris Cassidy – Retired NASA Astronaut
- Brian Mader – Extra Vehicular Operations Spacewalks Task Lead, NASA
- Ben Turner – Director and Executive Producer
- Turner was asked about what inspired him to do this series:
- “I have learned through my career that the more I love something and the more obsessed by something I am, the better job I do at telling that story. I’ve been lucky enough to do documentaries in lots of wonderful places with lots of wonderful people but the one thing that I’ve not really tapped into is the obsession that I’ve had with space my whole life and I just wanted so badly to get involved and tell this story.”
- Bergman was asked about the specific mission featured in this new series:
- “This is the first mission in a long time where we needed a new suite of tools and so we had an idea who was going to be working these missions and so we started working with Chris early on to say ‘ok this is the problem, here’s the tools we’re bringing forward, what do you think? How can we make updates?’ He’s used to being in the suit, he understands how to move in the suit so he can give us unique insight on how to design the tools better so that they’re more easy to use in those worksites.”
About Among the Stars:
- Among The Stars captures the last bastion of the previous era of space travel through shuttle astronauts, traverses into what the future holds with NASA’s plans to return to the moon, and its new commercial partnerships pushing the agencies further into space.
- The series goes beyond the spacesuit, introducing viewers to astronauts and engineers from around the world, including:
- Captain Cassidy’s partner astronaut, Luca Parmitano from the European Space Agency
- Drew Morgan, a rookie NASA astronaut who gets the chance of a lifetime to repair the AMS
- Emily Nelson, AMS flight director and the 10th female flight director at NASA
- Heather Bergman, AMS spacewalk tools manager at NASA who leads a team dedicated to creating spacewalk tools
- Professor Samuel Ting, Nobel Prize winner for discovering the J/Psi meson subatomic particle and AMS Inventor
- Ken Bollweg, AMS project manager who has worked hand-in-hand with professor Ting on the AMS experiment from its inception 25 years ago.
- Among the Stars is produced by Fulwell 73 Productions for Disney+.
- Ben Turner directs and executive produces for Fulwell 73.
- Executive producers on this series include Gabe Turner, Leo Pearlman, Will Gluck and Richard Schwartz.
- Among the Stars is streaming now on Disney+.
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