“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet
At Science City, the imagination of humanity’s oldest dream of reaching the stars recently found a spectacular cinematic expression with the inauguration of a new fulldome 3D film,
One Step Beyond: A Journey to Mars.
The occasion marked not merely the unveiling of a film but an invitation to reflect on humanity’s timeless fascination with the cosmos and its next great frontier.
The film was inaugurated by Dr. Goutam Chattopadhyay, Senior Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Visiting Professor at California Institute of Technology, in the presence of A. D. Choudhury, Director General of National Council of Science Museums; K. S. Murali, Deputy Director General of the National Council of Science Museums; and Pramod Grover, Director of Science City, Kolkata, along with other distinguished guests. Yet once the lights dimmed and the dome above came alive, the experience moved beyond ceremony and unfolded into something far more visceral. When the Rocket Lifted, We Lifted With It The moment of launch in the film was unforgettable.
As the rocket engines ignited and the spacecraft surged upward, the audience did not simply watch the ascent. We seemed to rise with it. The immense fulldome projection enveloped the entire field of vision so completely that the boundary between viewer and voyage began to dissolve. As the rocket pierced through the atmosphere and the Earth slowly receded beneath us, the sensation of motion felt astonishingly real. At one point, the intensity of the experience compelled me to close my eyes. The sensation was almost physical, dizzying and even slightly nauseating.
For a fleeting moment I felt almost pukish, as though the launch were truly happening around me. The experience was paradoxical. It was virtual and animated, yet also achingly real and surreal in its immediacy. For those few moments, it felt as though the audience had become part of the spacecraft itself, ascending into the sky. Landscapes Beyond Earth The film traces humanity’s long relationship with the cosmos. It begins with the historic first human footsteps on the Moon and moves forward toward the bold ambition of reaching Mars. What makes the journey remarkable is the way in which space becomes almost tangible. The craters of the Moon appeared so sharply defined that they seemed almost touchable.
Their cooled surfaces, shadowed valleys, steep blind alleyways and jagged formations unfolded across the dome with breathtaking clarity. The lunar landscape appeared textured and deeply physical, as though the terrain were extending into the theatre itself. Later, as the narrative travelled toward Mars, the Martian soil seemed strangely palpable. The red dust, stark ridges and silent plains appeared so vivid that the terrain felt almost within reach. At times the illusion was so powerful that it seemed possible to sense the dryness of the alien world, almost as though the air itself carried the metallic memory of Martian dust. In these moments the film moved effor tle ssly b etwe en science, imagination and sensory experience. Scientific reality, science fiction and cinematic storytelling blended into a single immersive language. The Human Dimension of Exploration Beyond the visual spectacle,
One Step Beyond:
A Journey to Mars reflects de eply on the human side of exploration. The narrative explore s the psychological journey of astronauts. Behind every mission lies a profoundly human story of individuals who must leave behind their families and familiar landscapes to venture toward an unknown and uninhabited frontier. The film quietly reminds viewers that astronauts are not distant mythic figures.
They are human beings who carry memories of home, loved ones and the emotional weight of journeys that may take them millions of kilometres away from Earth. Travelling alongside them through the film, one feels both the courage and the vulnerability that accompany such missions. Science Rooted in Reality During the inauguration, Dr. Chattopadhyay described the film as an animated experience “grounded in scientific reality”. “The universe excites,” he remarked, emphasising the expanding horizons of contemporary space exploration. He also highlighted the significance of the Artemis Program, describing it as the gateway to Mars and the next major step in humanity’s exploration of deep space. The film captures this continuum of discovery.
It links the historic legacy of lunar exploration with the ambitions of a future in which humans may one day walk on the Martian surface. Technology That Surrounds the Viewer A crucial part of the experience lies in the technological capabilities of the fulldome theatre at Science City. The theatre is equipped with six high-end digital projectors that together deliver nearly 30 million pixels of resolution across a 23-metre dome tilted at 23 degrees. Seamless blending technology allows the imagery to flow uninterr up te d across the curved surface. The result is an environment where the audience no longer watches a screen from a distance but inhabits the visual narrative itself.
Planets app ear overhead, spacecraft drift across the dome and stars stretch endlessly above the viewer. The illusion is powerful enough to create the sensation that the cosmos itself has descended into the theatre. The Creative Vision Dire cte d by Aaron Bradb ur y and produced by Ben Squire s, the film blends cinematic storytelling with scientific accuracy. Narration by Richard Armitage lends the narrative a measured gravitas, while music compose d by Rhian Sheehan deepens the sense of cosmic wonder. The 25-minute film, presented in fulldome 3D format with resolution reaching up to 8K by 8K at 60 frames per second, premiered internationally at the Fulldome Festival in Brno in June 2025 before being screened at the National Space Centre in the United Kingdom.
Its arrival in Kolkata now allows audiences to experience a cinematic journey where science, imagination and immersive storytelling converge within a single cosmic canvas. A Dream That Endures Perhaps the most striking aspect of
One Step Beyond:
A Journey to Mars is how it rekindles one of humanity’s oldest instincts, the urge to look upward and wonder. For millennia people have gazed at the night sky searching for meaning and possibility. That curiosity has taken humanity from myths to telescopes, from telescopes to rockets, and now toward the possibility of stepping onto another planet. Inside the darkened dome of Science City, that ancient dream briefly felt tangible.
For twenty-five minutes the audience travelled through space, rising with the rocket, gliding across lunar landscapes and standing imaginatively upon the red soil of Mars. And in that brief voyage, the intersection of science, imagination and human aspiration became vividly clear. The cosmos no longer felt distant. It felt within reach.
“Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.” — Interstellar