Ido Mizrahy’s Space: The Longest Goodbye invites a measure of cynicism. It’s in the way that the piano score quietly underlines the sentiments of its taking-head participants. It’s in the way strings crescendo in a show of almost spiritual communion with the cheering crowds depicted in stock footage. It’s in the way that the camera varies its perspective on the taking heads, from the carefully placed long shots that introduce them in silence to the gentle handheld that often captures them in a moment of decisiveness. The documentary’s textbook construction is such that it’s difficult to imagine it languishing without distribution.
What a relief, then, to discover how easily The Longest Goodbye keeps cynicism at bay through the breadth of its curiosity. It helps that there aren’t any cute robots at the film’s center. Well, there is one that’s central to one section, but it’s more uncanny than precious. Indeed, where Good Night Oppy fancifully strains the parent-child relationship between NASA scientists and the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, The Longest Goodbye casually stresses the intentional anthropomorphism of CIMON (or Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN) and how its crucial to the spherical, free-flying robot’s essential function: to not only help astronauts manage tasks during long-term missions but also to serve as a tool for isolation and anxiety relief.
Another film might have inserted a wink to 2001: A Space Odyssey here, or to Alien when the subject of artificially produced hibernation is broached. But this one isn’t interested in cute associations. And the fact that no humans have landed on Mars, and that we’re still at least some 10 years away from sending a manned mission to the red planet, frees The Longest Goodbye of the primitive rah-rah beats that define so many documentaries about space exploration.
Mizrahy’s film turns an impressively restrained and detailed lens on all the work that’s being done to provide all kinds of support to astronauts on a mission to Mars. Yes, there’s mention of the ideal time to launch such a mission, and what needs to happen for a lander to safely touch down on the surface of the planet, but The Longest Goodbye is primarily about the physiological, psychological, and social factors associated with a journey to Mars and back.
“We do need to get out of here.” Those are among the words uttered by an astronaut in the documentary’s opening footage, shot from a space station hovering over our planet. On his mind is all that he misses, from the sound of rain to the smell of fresh grass, and his inability to sleep. He’s in the same boat as so many astronauts before him, like Cady Coleman, who spent 159 days in space aboard the space shuttle Columbia and the International Space Station.
In one of The Longest Goodbye’s most moving sections, we glimpse Cady being assured of her achievements by one of her colleagues as she floats in zero gravity, and the toll that her time in space took on her young son, Jamey. In the present, the twentysomething Jamey recalls in vivid detail, and with pride in his voice, how it felt to watch his mother being launched into space. The filmmakers then perfectly link Cady’s isolation in space and Jamey’s back home to the 2010 Copiapó mining accident in northern Chile, and how NASA was enlisted to help the trapped miners, specifically with matters of nutritional and behavioral health.
The filmmakers may be patting NASA on the back, but you never doubt the sincerity of Al Holland, an operational psychologist with the agency, as he wipes tears from his eyes when recalling the moment that the Chilean miners were brought to the surface and reunited with their families. Though his tears, the film makes us understand that there will be no successful manned mission to Mars without the challenge of isolation in space being conquered. “History is being made this morning,” a launch commentator says just prior to the launch of one NASA mission, and The Longest Goodbye capitalizes on that sentiment by showing us all the groundbreaking and complicated work that scientists are doing to make that history possible.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
