The story begins with the Cassini Saturn spacecraft releasing the Huygens Titan probe. The scene is then transposed to Earth, where a 12-year-old girl, Jeana (Voiced by Abigail Breslin), places a sun filter over a telescope to view sun spots. She asks her mentor, a Professor (voiced by Neil Armstrong) "Why is the Sun so bright?" This leads the professor to launch into a scientific explanation about fusion. The little girl laughs, having played this trick on her mentor many times, she says "No, I meant bright, bright like happy. In most drawings, the sun has a big smile. Is he good, like the man in the moon." Knowing this means she wants a story, the mentor begins to spin a tale, but as a mentor, this one, while entertaining, is also educational.[10]
As he speaks, we transfer to the Sun, and watching a sunspot spin into view, we dive into and pass through the chromosphere, and head toward the center. The mentor lays down the basis of our story as we travel through the Sun. He explains that the "man in the sun is called the Core (voiced by William Shatner)" and spins a story how he is good and that his children "photons" are sent out to chase away the darkness, and bring life, warmth, and knowledge to Earth. He adds that the only being who does not like the Core is a creature called the "Void" (voiced by Mark Hamill) who is an ancient, malevolent, being who existed before the Big Bang, and who sits at the edge of the Solar System, scheming to stop the Core.[10]
The scene fades through a plasma wall, into "The Hall of Destiny" where we are introduced to the main character in the story – David (voiced by Chris Pine), a young Photon who should have begun his travel to the surface a million years ago. The Core, tries to get him moving on his journey, but David is fearful.[10]
We cut to the Kuiper Belt where a large space battle rages between two fleets – one composed of protons, and the opposing fleet of anti-protons. A character we call "The Ranger (voiced by Amanda Peet), who is a neutrinoscout, makes it through the battle lines and heads to the Sun.[10]
Back in the Sun, David is kicking solid lightsculptures into a plasma fountain. The Ranger crashes through the wall into David, followed by some imaginary creatures called Gell-Mann ghosts. The Ranger is trying to get to Saturn (other side of the Sun), to deliver a message to the Cassini Space Core Commander. The Gell-Mann ghosts (nasty creatures) surround them. The only way to escape is to give the message scroll to David, and ask him to deliver it while the Ranger holds the ghosts at bay. David sails through the Sun and encounters a "surfer dude" Solar Proton, Jammer (voiced by Hayden Christensen), who surfs the solar winds.[10]
David's journey takes him through the Solar System, to an exploration of the moons of Saturn. Eventually he finds Milton (voiced by Robert Picardo), an older photon character who is mining for free quarks. Milton teaches David introductory material about electrons, protons, quarks, etc. The two evade the evil/comical forces of the Void, until they get captured by the "Dark Side of the Moon".[10]
In the process of escaping viewers learn about the fundamental modes of motion and introduce basic quantum concepts. The message scroll is partially damaged, so David does not know who the space commander is, but he knows that he needs to get to the Cassini spacecraft, because something bad will happen.[10]
He gets inside the Cassini craft and encounters the ship's computer, GAL 2000 (voiced by Sandra Oh), who, in the course of determining the danger, teaches David about spectra, the mission of the spacecraft, different radiation bands used for remote sensing, etc. In the end, they save the antenna of the ship from a beam of anti-matter sent by the Void. They do this with the help of Jammer. David discovers that he is the Space Core Commander (all this time, searching for himself). He leads the transmission back to Earth, and through a system of antennas, is processed, and as Jeana accesses the Web page of JPL, he flies through the screen and enters Jeana's eye.[10]
Voice cast
The film's cast changed in 2008, reflecting a new script and detailing a host of new discoveries.
Note: This was Casey Kasem’s final film before his death in June 2014.
Background
Though other missions have been seen in film projects, this is the first where NASA initiated the project with an independent filmmaker in order to create an animated fiction film to be based upon on-going missions, science, and discovery.[2][8][9] The animated educational film interweaves actual space imagery captured from ongoing NASA missions with an adventure, set in an imaginary universe and intended to create a family-friendly film experience that entertains while educating viewers about the Solar System.[2][8][9][11] The film was tied into 7 on-going space missions and includes footage from the Cassini–Huygens, SOHO, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Venus Express, and Mercury MESSENGER space missions.[2][9]Quantum Quest was released in both IMAX format and regular theaters worldwide.[2][8] The film is 45 minutes long and integrated pre and post theater educational program for K – 12 students that exceed Federal and State educational guidelines.[2][8][9]
Dr. Kloor started development of the Quantum Quest film project in 1996, a year before the launch of the Cassini–Huygens mission.[8] In 2007, Digimax, Inc., one of Asia’s leading 3D animation studios, committed to financing the film and providing animation. Actual production on the film could not begin until the Cassini-Huygens (at $3.5 billion) reached its target and sent back its discoveries.[8] Final images and radar data, providing a partial radar map, were released by NASA in 2008, enabling the film to proceed.[8]Quantum Quest is a precedent-setting film, combining state-of-the-art CGI with real images and radar data from the ongoing Cassini-Huygen, SOHO, Stereo mission to the Sun, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Venus Express, and Mercury MESSENGER space missions, representing billions of dollars of NASA investment.
Working on two continents, Taiwan based Digimax undertook the entire animation pre-production and production task in Taiwan with a team of international artists, while Dr. Kloor and his Jupiter 9 Productions assembled a stellarvoice cast, produced all talent recordings and, in concert with the film’s composer Shawn Clement, put together the post sound and music package.[16][17] The film was distributed and marketed in Asia by Digimax, and by Jupiter 9 Productions in all other territories.[17]
Music
The score to Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey was composed by Shawn K. Clement,[18] who recorded his score with an 80-piece ensemble of the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra at the Skywalker Scoring Stage north of San Francisco. Clement integrated sounds and space noise provided by NASA into the music, and served as Post Audio Producer on the film.[19]
On May 10, 2022, the film was distributed on VOD platforms including Apple TV, Prime Video and Vudu by Giant Pictures.[25][26]
Related Research Articles
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about nine times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive. Even though Saturn is almost as big as Jupiter, Saturn has less than a third the mass of Jupiter. Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of 9.59 AU (1,434 million km), with an orbital period of 29.45 years.
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest in the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have an atmosphere denser than the Earth's and is the only known object in space—other than Earth—on which there is clear evidence that stable bodies of liquid exist. Titan is one of seven gravitationally rounded moons of Saturn and the second-most distant among them. Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger in diameter than Earth's Moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter's Ganymede and is larger than Mercury; yet Titan is only 40% as massive as Mercury, because Mercury is mainly iron and rock while much of Titan is ice, which is less dense.
Rhea is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth-largest moon in the Solar System, with a surface area that is comparable to the area of Australia. It is the smallest body in the Solar System for which precise measurements have confirmed a shape consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium. Rhea has a nearly circular orbit around Saturn, but it is also tidally locked, like Saturn's other major moons; that is, it rotates with the same period it revolves (orbits), so one hemisphere always faces towards the planet.
Cassini–Huygens, commonly called Cassini, was a space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, including its rings and natural satellites. The Flagship-class robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini space probe and ESA's Huygens lander, which landed on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit, where it stayed from 2004 to 2017. The two craft took their names from the astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.
Iapetus is the outermost of Saturn's large moons. With an estimated diameter of 1,469 km (913 mi), it is the third-largest moon of Saturn and the eleventh-largest in the Solar System. Named after the Titan Iapetus, the moon was discovered in 1671 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini.
Huygens was an atmospheric entry robotic space probe that landed successfully on Saturn's moon Titan in 2005. Built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), launched by NASA, it was part of the Cassini–Huygens mission and became the first spacecraft to land on Titan and the farthest landing from Earth a spacecraft has ever made. The probe was named after the 17th-century Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens, who discovered Titan in 1655.
This article provides a timeline of the Cassini–Huygens mission. Cassini was a collaboration between the United States' NASA, the European Space Agency ("ESA"), and the Italian Space Agency ("ASI") to send a probe to study the Saturnian system, including the planet, its rings, and its natural satellites. The Flagship-class uncrewed robotic spacecraft comprised both NASA's Cassini probe, and ESA's Huygens lander which was designed to land on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Cassini was the fourth space probe to visit Saturn and the first to enter its orbit. The craft were named after astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christiaan Huygens.
The rings of Saturn are the most extensive and complex ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters, that orbit around Saturn. The ring particles are made almost entirely of water ice, with a trace component of rocky material. There is still no consensus as to their mechanism of formation. Although theoretical models indicated that the rings were likely to have formed early in the Solar System's history, newer data from Cassini suggested they formed relatively late.
Carolyn C. Porco is an American planetary scientist who explores the outer Solar System, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She led the imaging science team on the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus.
The Space Science Institute (SSI) in Boulder, Colorado, is a nonprofit, public-benefit corporation formed in 1992. Its purpose is to create and maintain an environment where scientific research and education programs can flourish in an integrated fashion. SSI is among the four non-profit institutes in the US cited in a 2007 report by Nature, including Southwest Research Institute, Planetary Science Institute, and Eureka Scientific, which manage federal grants for non-tenure-track astronomers.
The exploration of Saturn has been solely performed by crewless probes. Three missions were flybys, which formed an extended foundation of knowledge about the system. The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft, launched in 1997, was in orbit from 2004 to 2017.
David M. Harland is an author and space historian. He lives in Scotland. Previously, he was a computer scientist at the University of Glasgow and worked on the Rekursiv project for Linn Products.
Harry 'Doc' Kloor is an American scientist, film producer, director, writer, and entrepreneur. Kloor was the first to be awarded two PhDs simultaneously in two distinct academic disciplines both earned at Purdue University. In recognition of this achievement, he was named ABC person of the week in August 1994.
Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM) was a joint NASA–ESA proposal for an exploration of Saturn and its moons Titan and Enceladus, where many complex phenomena were revealed by Cassini. TSSM was proposed to launch in 2020, get gravity assists from Earth and Venus, and arrive at the Saturn system in 2029. The 4-year prime mission would include a two-year Saturn tour, a 2-month Titan aero-sampling phase, and a 20-month Titan orbit phase.
Charles Kohlhase worked for forty years at NASA/JPL leading the design of several robotic deep-space planetary missions. He is also an author, game developer and lecturer.
In Saturn's Rings is a large format movie about Saturn made exclusively from real photographs taken by spacecraft. Director Stephen van Vuuren used more than 7.5 million photographs and numerous film techniques to create the effect of flying through space around Saturn and among its rings. CGI and 3-D modeling were not used in any capacity to create the realistic feel van Vuuren wanted for the viewer's experience. Most of the photos were taken by various major space missions.
The Cassini space probe was deliberately disposed of via a controlled fall into Saturn's atmosphere on September 15, 2017, ending its nearly two-decade-long mission. This method was chosen to prevent biological contamination of any of the moons of Saturn now thought to offer potentially habitable environments. Factors that influenced the mission end method included the amount of rocket fuel left, the health of the spacecraft, and funding for operations on Earth.
A flyby is a spaceflight operation in which a spacecraft passes in proximity to another body, usually a target of its space exploration mission and/or a source of a gravity assist to impel it towards another target. Spacecraft which are specifically designed for this purpose are known as flyby spacecraft, although the term has also been used in regard to asteroid flybys of Earth for example. Important parameters are the time and distance of closest approach.
Amanda R. Hendrix is an American planetary scientist known for her pioneering studies of solar system bodies at ultraviolet wavelengths. She is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Her research interests include moon and asteroid surface composition, space weathering effects and radiation products. She is a co-investigator on the Cassini UVIS instrument, was a co-investigator on the Galileo UVS instrument, is a Participating Scientist on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LAMP instrument and is a Principal Investigator on Hubble Space Telescope observing programs. As of 2019, she is also the co-lead of the NASA Roadmaps to Oceans World Group.
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