8. The Shower Of Debris Is Possible
Alongside the latent birth parallels Gravity acts as a cautionary tale for space exploration, with one small mishap leading to a trail of destruction that quickly wipes out much of our grounding in the greater universe. Likening the risk to that of the first creatures to walk on land in such a mainstream context is a rare stance that highlights the sheer relative growth space travel is to our civilisation. Of course, that's an extreme case, right? Well yes, but that doesn't diminish the fact that the shower of debris is a possibility. The Kessler syndrome (named after the scientist who proposed it) is the notion of a chain reaction of space debris exactly as seen in Gravity (although in actuality would probably be caused by high numbers of satellites in low Earth orbit, rather than a Russian mistake). And more than just threatening the lives of those on the ISS, a severe reaction could make travel beyond our atmosphere impossible for generations. Disturbingly, the chances of survival of anyone trapped in the stream of the destruction would be naught. For obvious reasons few space stations cross orbits, so jumping from the ISS to Tiangong would never be an option. Suddenly the theories the whole film is Ryans CO2 induced fantasy seem like the most realistic possibility.