New film Good Night Oppy puts spotlight on the 'lovable' Opportunity Mars rover
CBC
When Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt was in Grade 8, she witnessed something that sparked her love for space exploration: the launch of the Mars Exploration Rover mission.
"When I saw Spirit and Opportunity, these robot explorers on Mars … searching specifically for water, I thought, well, maybe this is something I can do," she told The Current's Matt Galloway.
Siegfriedt had already been fascinated by the bright stars and galaxies in the sky above her hometown of Fredericksburg, Texas, and the 1997 movie Contact.
But she said it was "really cool" seeing these robots with human-like features, from eyes to an arm, exploring the Red Planet.
"I think that's what [struck] me first, was seeing how we transformed these robots into people so we can do what people can't do currently," she said.
WATCH: Opportunity's launch in 2003
Now the flight director at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Siegfriedt has gone from watching rovers to designing, testing and even launching NASA's latest Mars rover, Perseverance.
Siegfriedt is featured in Ryan White's new documentary, Good Night Oppy, currently screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film focuses on Opportunity, the Mars rover initially designed to last 90 days on the planet but ended up staying for 15 years — and the scientists and engineers captivated by it.
"It was a series of all of these people that I was waiting to say, 'No, we're not going to work with you, you little documentary filmmaker,' — [they] kept saying yes," White told Galloway.
"I think it's a testament to this story and how, I think, heartwarming and uplifting it is."
White said he was "hooked" the moment Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment production company pitched the film idea, but was concerned about finding people who could communicate the story with emotion.
"The robot can't talk," he said. "Now we have to go to NASA and find scientists and engineers who I thought, in my preconceived notions, would be very unemotional, detached people."
"But time and time again, we were shocked when we interviewed these people, how much they wore their heart on their sleeve."
