Posted in: Movies | Tagged: avengers, film, marvel

The Avengers In Space? NASA Plum Brook Research Facility To Be Used By Marvel Studios

Published Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:59:53 -0500

Last updated Tue, 19 Jul 2011 07:00:01 -0500

Cleveland.com is confirming an interesting tidbit that has been rumored about The Avengers for the past few weeks: Marvel has reached an agreement with NASA to use the space agency's Plum Brook facility in Sandusky, Ohio in filming the Avengers Next Month. It is believed that the facility's giant vacuum chamber (see pic, vid below) is Marvel's key point of interest in the facility.

SANDUSKY, Ohio — Producers for the movie, "The Avengers," have reached an agreement to use NASA's Plum Brook facilities here when filming begins next month, John Pisani, a publicist for the film said.

The Plum Brook Station has a feature that may be especially appealing to filmmakers: A vacuum chamber that can recreate the cold and airlessness of outer space. It's believed that is one of the reason's the NASA facility was chosen as a filming location.

NASA's information on the chamber indicates it is used to simulate various conditions in space, and was designed to test the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle:

"The Space Power Facility will be the only facility in the U.S., if not the world, that can perform complete environmental testing on a fully assembled spacecraft," said David Stringer, director of Plum Brook Station.

The new reverberant acoustic chamber will subject Orion to the intense vibrations and shockwaves it will endure during launch and ascent. In the vacuum chamber, infrared lamps and cold walls flushed with liquid nitrogen will simulate the extreme hot and cold temperatures of space. The electromagnetic interference tests will also take place inside the vacuum chamber, which blocks radio frequencies and cell phone signals. Electromagnetic interference equipment positioned on moving platforms will challenge the reliability of Orion's communications and electronics systems.

This raises some intriguing possibilities for a film that is already sounding (and looking) incredibly ambitious: with the Skrulls and possibly even Thanos involved in the film, this one is sounding interesting indeed.