With his new film released later this week, Brad Pitt is set to call NASA astronaut Nick Hague—who is currently living aboard the International Space Station—today for a discussion about life in space.
Pitt plays an astronaut in the upcoming space opera Ad Astra, which will be in cinemas across the country on September 20. In the movie, Roy McBride (Pitt) travels to the furthest reaches of the solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and his doomed expedition, which now threatens the future of humanity.
If you would like to listen in on Pitt's call with Hague—in which the NASA astronaut will answer questions from the actor—head to NASA TV or the space agency's website, where it will be streamed live starting at 11:35 a.m. EDT.
Kansas native Hague is currently a part of the Expedition 59 and 60 crew which launched to the International Space Station in March this year. In the lead up to Pitt's call, the Expedition 60 crew watched a screening of the film aboard the ISS during their downtime.
While the events of the movie are firmly based in science fiction, NASA says that it did collaborate with the producers during the development process, providing technical expertise and imagery.
"We reviewed a script of Ad Astra early in production," Bert Ulrich from NASA Headquarters in Washington, who liaises with film and TV productions, said in a statement.
"Although there was no NASA storyline, we provided some of the exciting images and footage for the film especially of the moon and Mars. Sci-fi films like Ad Astra, The Martian, Interstellar and Gravity take movie audiences out of this world incorporating some of NASA's most inspirational photography and footage," Ulrich said.
Despite being a work of science fiction, Pitt's character does travel to the moon and Mars in the film—two worlds NASA has set its sights on.
The space agency wants to land a woman on the moon by 2024 as part of the so-called Artemis program. It is working with commercial and international partners to achieve that aim.
After the planned 2024 landing, NASA then intends to send more astronauts to the moon about once a year and establish "sustainable lunar exploration" by 2028.
These lunar missions will be used as a testing ground for NASA's ultimate aim of landing humans on the red planet for the first time in history.
