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SYNOPSIS:
Set 100 years in the future, L5 follows a seven-year-old girl named Chieko(Chee-A-ko) as she discovers the wonders of the city in which she lives with her father and mother--from self-contained farms and gardens to laboratories and factories; from schools and playgrounds to a state-of-the-art docking bay for spaceships and probes. In flashback, Chieko recounts the earliest days of the space city and describes the perilous quest to capture a new water supply for its expanding population.

Cheiko relates the story of her grandfather, the city’s chief scientist, and how he launched a plan to obtain water from a comet passing the planet Jupiter. What follows is the recreation of her father’s treacherous journey across the vast solar system to reroute the comet and then return safely to L5.

MARS "FLY-BY” ALSO DEPICTED:
Of timely interest, L5: First City In Space contains a breathtaking sequence where viewers skim the surface of Mars at high speeds. Elaborating on data taken by NASA space-probe Viking, filmmakers show what the surface of “the red planet” actually looks like -- specifically a portion of the Valles Marineris (a huge valley on the Mars surface which is the width of the entire United States) called Candor Chasma (a stunningly visual spot where future space expeditions will be able to land).

“We’re extremely fortunate to have the cinematic ability to bring actual NASA data to life,” said Toni Myers, supervising director of L5: First City In Space. “We’re projecting viewers 100 years into the future, putting them on a space city, and giving them an inside look at their solar system and how we’ll be exploring it in the future.”

THE BASIS FOR THE STORY:
L5 derives its name from an actual point in space in the moon’s orbit around the Earth. It is an ideal location for a “port” city because there is almost no gravitational pull. Here spaceships can come and go using very little energy. L5: First City In Space offers viewers a ‘sneak-peek’ at how we could live and work in space a hundred years from now.

For L5: First City In Space, filmmakers created a city based on the designs of Pat Rawlings, an artist specializing in spacecraft who has worked with NASA for more than 17 years, and in part on the groundbreaking work of world-renowned scientist and futurist Gerard O’Neill -- a pioneer in the studies of how to design and develop working space stations and cities. O’Neill speculated on how people could survive and flourish in space cities with a self-contained eco-system under the long-term influence of rotation-induced gravity.

The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga is the largest freshwater aquarium in the world. Built with private contributions, this non-profit educational organization is dedicated to the understanding, conservation and enjoyment of the Tennessee River and related ecosystems. Admission is $10.25 per adult and $5.50 per child, ages 3-12. The Aquarium is open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas and is accessible to people with disabilities. The Aquarium’s TDD number is (423) 265-4498, and FM assistive listening devices are available on site. For more information, call 1-800-262-0695.