Since people first escaped Earth’s atmosphere in fragile looking crafts, space has served as the new American west in the public imagination – an irresistible target of exploration to JFK, and the “final frontier” of “Star Trek” fanatics.
But unlike the former frontier of the old west, where the individual’s pioneering spirit found scant restraint, the vastness of space was long filled with government designs, while access to private parties remained barred by the great expense of any non-governmental endeavor.
In time, the entrepreneurial approach to space gradually intruded, with a tiny number of rich guys penetrating the weightless reaches as high-rolling tourists.
Then President Obama unveiled plans for a greater privatization of the U.S. space program, pushing the entrepreneurial approach front and center, and its most visible exponent, PayPal cofounder Elon Musk, is busy penetrating the sky with his Falcon 9 rocket and filling Google News with the latest developments of his company SpaceX.
But a decade before SpaceX and the Falcon 9, idiosyncratic American entrepreneur Walt Anderson popped his head above the clouds and boldly went where no one had gone before, launching a plan to buy the Russians’ Mir Space Station and begin the realization of space-geek dreams, from asteroid mining to floating private labs, and hotel tourism in the heavens.
Anderson came achingly close to realizing his most audacious dreams. A former confederate, Peninsula resident Michael Potter, captured the unlikely voyage with clarity, excitement and dramatic effect in his award-winning documentary “Orphans of Apollo,” which made its area debut May 28 at San Pedro’s historic Warner Grand Theatre.
Potter’s excitingly paced 75-minute film, which is available on DVD at Amazon.com, does double duty, chronicling Anderson’s space quest and offering an inside look at the culture of “new spacers” whose energy and imagination insist on bringing the DIY mentality into the dauntingly expensive and high-tech spaces of space.
The documentary builds tension and suspense with a tale as fun as fiction, and delivers its information in such digestible fashion that the non-science geek remains easily at home in the story. All the while the film moves easily from the grittiness of the conference table to the majesty of space, incorporating relevant footage from IMAX and NASA.
Potter can take pride that his documentary has earned the attention of the transition team that helped Obama understand the complex U.S. space program when he took office. A member of the federal government’s Augustine Commission, which reviewed manned space flights, made sure the panel was equipped with a copy of the DVD.
Potter, 48, who lives in Palos Verdes Estates with his wife Margaret, three kids, two cats, a dog and a bearded dragon lizard, found his way into the space business by becoming expert in telecommunications systems. In the 1980s he worked with the federal government’s Space Transition Policy Program, and later for International Space University at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He took part in published proposals for a joint U.S.-Soviet mission to Mars. He enjoyed heady times, studying matters such as space architecture and space art. He took part in the regular “cultural night” at the international university – one night it would explore vodka and hockey under Russian guidance, and another would see a cross-dressing party under the guidance of the French.
Potter then worked “one degree of separation” from Anderson on a terrestrial communications plan when the Espirit Telephone company attempted to become the Sprint or MCI of Europe.
Then Potter signed on for the Anderson’s breathtaking and improbable private space concern, helping to shepherd Anderson’s plans all the way to a lease deal for the Mir. The project’s final hurdles – which we won’t reveal here to avoid the notorious movie spoiler – add to the poignancy and drama of “Orphans.”
Anderson was a larger than life character who later would be convicted of tax evasion, although he professes his innocence. While he was reaching for the heavens, the news media followed him with mostly serious coverage, but it came in an article here, a newscast there.
Partly because of the lack of sustained coverage at the time, Potter is justified in describing his film as “the greatest space story never told.”
Another reason for the greatness of the story is how prescient Anderson appears in retrospect. Entrepreneurs are now being welcomed into space, and the post-Anderson years lend even more credence to his belief that the remarkably inexpensive Mir station should have been used by someone, instead of being thrown over for the vastly more expensive International Space Station that came next.
When Potter set out to make the movie, armed with the true DIY mentality of a new spacer, it didn’t really occur to him that this was something he had never done before. It suddenly dawned on him, after he secured a visa in preparation to go to Russia, to begin to get it done.
“I panicked because I realized I didn’t know how to make a film,” he said.
He looked up a friend who worked as a Hollywood script doctor and got an “idiot’s guide” lesson in filmmaking, and went to it.
As “Orphans” enjoys positive reviews, Potter has begun working as executive producer on a documentary about the Singularity University at NASA’s Ames Research Center, an interdisciplinary institution that seeks out-of-the-box solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
“These are interesting times,” he said. PEN
