🎞 The new space race is all about drama - just ask Tom Cruise

Space is opening up. Initially being something reserved for states and governments, space is becoming feasible for an expanding range of commercial opportunities. One such opportunity, which has launched a micro space race of sorts, is creating motion pictures in orbit.

Last year, it was Tom Cruise revealed he is teaming up with Netflix to record an action movie shot in space. The movie is made in collaboration with NASA and Elon Musk's SpaceX and was expected to be the first production of its kind. However, it seems like a Russian venture has beaten the big names to the punch.

Actor Yulia Peresild and film producer Klim Shipenko took off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan and arrived at the International Space Station on October 5. They were accompanied by astronaut Anton Shkaplerov, who will also be in the movie.

The trip itself offered some film-worthy drama as the automatic docking system failed, forcing cosmonaut Shkaplerov to perform the maneuver manually, all against the clock as the craft was about to move out of the communications range of mission control.

The movie, titled "Challenge", or "Vyzov", centers around a surgeon who travels to space to perform surgery on an astronaut whose condition prohibits a safe return to earth. The movie was selected by the Russian space agency Roscosmos in a competition held in November 2020.

There are reports suggesting that Tom Cruise's stay on the space station could also occur in October, but no definitive date has been communicated nor the title of the coming production.

We can't wait to see both of these made-in-space movies and hope that the future will feature more shows filmed on location in space. Not to mention the moon and Mars!