Chris Reid at the Wing Commander CIC reports that Richard Garriott’s Apogee of Fear — the first sci-fi film shot entirely in space — has been approved for release by NASA. Distribution details, Reid says, should be available soon.

He also links to an article at Space.com which provides a brief synopsis of the film:

After his talk at the conference last year, Garriott gave a private screening of “Apogee of Fear.” That is, he showed the eight-minute movie on his laptop to a half-dozen or so folks who had stuck around to ask him questions or introduce themselves.

“Apogee of Fear” is without question the best science fiction film ever made in space. It begins with NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Greg Chamitoff waving affably to Garriott through a window as the space tourist departs the orbiting lab and heads back home to Earth.

Then they turn to each other and express profound relief that he’s finally gone.

“Man, am I glad we finally got rid of that guy,” Chamitoff says.

Cut to several days later, and Fincke and Chamitoff are actually starting to miss Garriott. Without him around, Chamitoff is having trouble juggling, and the two astronauts are finding it difficult to settle their recurring arguments about who is upside-down and who is right-side-up.

But then an ominous declaration breaks the wistful chatter: Cosmonaut Yuri Lonchakov announces that oxygen use aboard the station is higher than it should be.

“Let’s just think of what might be the obvious reason,” Chamitoff says. “Maybe it’s aliens.”

With luck, we’ll see this…er…well…I would guess on YouTube or something…before the end of the year. Heck, if we’re really lucky, we’ll see it before the middle of the year. But let’s face it: this is NASA, and there is bureaucracy involved. It could be a while, still, approval nonwithstanding.