The new Star Trek has arrived at the White House and all the way up to the International Space Station.
Paramount transferred Star Trek, which opened in theaters last weekend, earlier this week to NASA‘s Mission Control in Houston, which then uplinked the film to the space station where NASA astronaut Michael Barratt can then watch the movie on a laptop computer inside the Unity module, 220 miles above Earth.
“I remember watching the original ‘Star Trek’ series and, like many of my NASA coworkers, was inspired by the idea of people from all nations coming together to explore space,” said Barratt. “‘Star Trek’ blended adventure, discovery, intelligence and story telling that assumes a positive future for humanity. The International Space Station is a real step in that direction, with many nations sharing in an adventure the world can be proud of.”
President Obama watched the new Star Trek movie at the White House’s movie theater and he told Newsweek that he thought the film was good. In a Q&A with the magazine, the President acknowledged how the media has been saying that he is like the logical Vulcan Spock and he even gave the Vulcan salute.
So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].
During Obama’s presidential campaign, it was revealed that he was a Trek fan, which has since led articles like the one at Salon titled Obama is Spock: It’s quite logical, complete with photoshopped image of the President with standard Vulcan features of pointed ears and eyebrows (see image above; and there’s plenty more similar composites online).
In the Newsweek article, the President also talked a bit about watching Star Trek as a child growing up. He also talks lots of politics in the 4-page article, so be sure to check out the link.
The new Star Trek is still going strong in theaters, raking in a reported estimate of over $116 million since its initial release.
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