Top 10 documentaries # 6 Good Night Oppy (2022)

Tweet

So at number six is ‘Good Night Oppy’, the extraordinary journey of the NASA space probe mission launched in 2003 to explore Mars. The robot probe was only supposed to last around three months but was still able to function some 15 years later, an astonishing feat of human engineering to get it on the surface and be so durable. Spielberg’s Amblin Company made the documentary and so it has the magic about it as he makes the robot somehow come to life on the distant world through Angela Bassett’s soothing narration. There were two probes up and running and after numerous teething problems ‘Spirit’ and ‘Opportunity’ went about their work on the Red planet, battling solar flares, dust storms, iffy phone signals and rather awkward rocks to be negotiated. You name it the engineers had to fix it from no fewer than 140,000,000 miles away. We all saw Apollo 13 and we all know BASA boffins can fix pretty much anything up there and that romantic and thrilling side of the space program is its biggest seller. The Space Shuttle program was super important but it had to end because it was a super expensive waste of money that burned up in flames. Probes and Elon Musk privateers were the future now and the end of NASA. Although the probes were armed with cameras the film uses simulation to explain the mishaps and dramas that had to be overcome by the boffins on Earth, like when Opportunity gets beached on a rock and the track and wheel won’t work to go on as they try to push deeper into the horizon. It’s just amazing how this all plays out and the atmospheric simulation just adds to the incredible story of the two robots ‘walkabout’, standing 5 feet tall all those million miles away gathering red dust today as the sun, Mars weather and crushing conditions finally wore away the little guys resistance and the solar power batteries faded with their memory chips, the remaining one declared no more in 2019 as dust storms plastered those solar panels and no energy left to shake it off this time. It’s a stunning, joyous, informative, inspiring piece of film and you just have to see it guys. https://youtu.be/W4t58Yruhds