Gravity

Wo! I can't believe it's been 4 years since I posted here. I haven't been that busy! I still have notes on my other 3 climate change posts that I will massage into proper form shortly.  (However, I just saw this from Freeman Dyson which says roughly what I was saying but with more facts and insight and probably more clarity.)  BTW Dyson invented the idea of Dyson Spheres (and many other amazing things) which, if you haven't heard of then you should have.

Anyway the point of this particular post you might consider a little frivolous but it is about the scientific veracity of the movie Gravity.

WARNING: Minor spoiler alert, if you haven't seen the movie.

Gravity (movie)

In brief, I thought the scenery and technical accuracy of this movie were brilliant. The Zero-G effects were perfect even putting "2001, a Space Odyssey" to shame (though that movie did not have access to a lot of new film technology, of course). On first viewing I found a few dubious things but on rumination discovered my own explanations:

1. The three large satellites involved (Hubble?, ISS and Chinese station) all seemed to be in very similar orbits, and even visible from one another, which seems highly unlikely. However, maybe in the future (presumably, in which this is set) the three satellites are parked in a row like this.
2. There seemed to be an invisible force acting in George Clooney's "exit" scene as it seems he is being pulled from the grasp of Sandra Bullock. I thought she should have easily been able to reel him in (if slowly). One explanation is that they were rotating around the ISS/Soyuz and the centrifugal force acting on them was too much for her to pull him in.
3. In orbit things usually move quickly relative to each other so seeing things coming and all this debris just bouncing off things seemed unlikely. However, then I realized that the debris was likely in a similar, but crossing, orbit. (This also explains the 90 minute gap between encountering it.)
4. The accident obviously happened in a low orbit so should not have affected communications satellites in geostationary orbit (at least for a while, if at all). However, perhaps in the future, communications is handled by a network of low orbit satellites rather than geostationary ones (which I think will happen because geostationary is too far away adding to the launch and running costs, and the comms delay).

I have since also read a few other criticisms of the movie.  As one example, someone said that astronauts need cooling systems, "space nappies", etc when using a space suit. All these also can be plausibly explained in terms of technological advances (eg, in-built space suit cooling and water reclamation systems) and maybe a bit of poetic license.

Was it really set in the future? It seems that it was actually in the past as they appeared to be on the Space Shuttle and servicing the Hubble telescope. But the Space Shuttles have been decommissioned and Hubble had its final service years ago. I can only assume that the Shuttle program was resurrected and the use of Hubble extended.

In summary, I found the science plausible compared to some other SF movies I have recently seen (eg The Martian). I especially liked all the Zero-G effects (though The Martian was good in that respect, also).