The central premise of the blockbuster film “Project Hail Mary” is a long-shot mission with a familiar goal: Save humanity from extinction. While the details of the threat facing humanity are new to this story, moviegoers are used to bingeing on popcorn while watching a heroic quest to save the Earth from certain doom. And like so many popular movies of this genre, from “Armageddon” to “Interstellar,” the hero’s journey involves a seemingly impossible mission into space.
The film’s release is well timed for the new era of space exploration. NASA’s Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch in early April, will send four astronauts around the Moon on a path that will take them deeper into space than any humans have ever traveled.
