Space cadets – Nasa’s teenage trainees are the subject of a Netflix Originals documentary. Courtesy Netflix
Space cadets – Nasa’s teenage trainees are the subject of a Netflix Originals documentary. Courtesy Netflix
Space cadets – Nasa’s teenage trainees are the subject of a Netflix Originals documentary. Courtesy Netflix
Space cadets – Nasa’s teenage trainees are the subject of a Netflix Originals documentary. Courtesy Netflix

Film

Meet The Mars Generation director Michael Barnett at Umm Al Emarat Park

Free movie screening follows the adventures of Mars simulation camp attendees

Chris Newbould

October 05, 2017

  • English
  • Arabic

Aspiring space travellers excited by the news that the UAE is preparing to select its first astronauts have the opportunity to put in some early study this weekend, with a public screening of US director Michael Barnett's latest documentary, The Mars Generation.

The screening will be held at Umm Al Emarat Park in Abu Dhabi at 7.30pm on Saturday, where the director will answer questions.

Barnett's film follows the experiences of a group of American teenagers attending the first Mars Simulation Camp at Huntsville, Alabama's internationally renowned space camp.

He will also host private screenings in schools and colleges over the next week as part of the US embassy-supported Discover America UAE 2017 programme.

The director said that the concept is a simple one at heart, but said that the movie is much more than a fly-on-the-wall look at a group of children having fun.

"Through the kids we start to learn a lot about Nasa and our space exploration history," he said. "We sort of use the kids as a Trojan Horse to get us into some deeply political, historical conversations about space exploration, and take a very contemporary look at where we are now with reusable rockets and SpaceX, and some deeper philosophical questions about why we should explore space.

"Are we alone? Where did we come from? These are some of the most profound questions we can ask ourselves, and if we go to Mars and find some kind of fossilised microbial life and answer one of these questions, how do you put a price tag on that?"

The children also serve as a means of lightening the mood among the burning philosophical questions the film poses. "Every time we get a little too ambitious or deep, we cut back to these really bright, really eccentric kids, which kind of grounds us."

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Read more:

A Martian chronicle of teens in training for a mission to the Red Planet

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Barnett said that the movie's subjects could well be the next generation of Nasa scientists and astronauts, and he said that we are far closer to visiting Mars than many people realise – particularly with the entry of businessmen, such as Elon Musk, into the space travel arena.

"I really think we're on the cusp of one of the most exciting times in terms of space exploration, but nobody's talking about it," he said.

"Nasa's budget has been going up every year since the shuttle was retired in 2011 and no one knows that. With the private sector now increasingly taking care of low-orbit work, Nasa can refocus its energy on something extraordinary. I made a film to talk about that because nobody else is."

Mars Generation screens at Umm Al Emarat Park on Saturday, October 7, at 7.00pm. Screening is free but park entry is Dh5. The film can also be streamed on Netflix

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash

Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.

Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.

Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.

Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.

Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.

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