NASA and Roscosmos are extending the stay of astronauts to allow a movie to be shot on the International Space Station.
The astronauts are to stay an additional six months for a two-week filming session in what will be the first time a movie has been shot in space, according to ANU astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker.
“Tom Cruise was looking at going to film a movie in space, well, we got bumped to a flight next year because this Inspiration4 mission of SpaceX happened this week,” he told Sky News.
“Well Russia decided they could slide in, have their own actress, Yulia Peresild, and a director go up with film cameras and film a two-week part of a movie with a Russian TV studio on the space station.”
Dr Tucker said because the actress and the director will enter and leave space in a short time, they cannot rotate astronauts and replace the outgoing with ingoing.
“Because this actress and director need to go up, that means the current American and Russian who are scheduled to come down on the returning flight are now going to be scheduled on the next one which is not for six months,” he said.
“They are literally having their flight in space extended for six months so Russia could film a movie to beat Tom Cruise.”