2012, Roland Emmerich's gleefully comprehensive demolition job disaster movie, has been named the most absurd science-fiction film ever by Nasa.

The film, which was released in 2009 to groans of guilty pleasure and the healthy ringing of cash registers (it took nearly $800m from a $200m budget), was deemed the silliest and most scientifically flawed film at a conference in California.

Set on 21 December 2012, the film tells the story of John Cusack and Amanda Peet's marital reconciliation, against the backdrop of the end of the world – an effect of mysterious neutrino particles that lay waste to the globe's top tourist attractions.

It was, said head of Nasa's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission Donald Yeomans, an "exceptional and extraordinary" example of Hollywood bad science. "The film-makers took advantage of public worries about the so-called end of the world as apparently predicted by the Mayans of Central America, whose calendar ends on December 21, 2012," Yeomans told newspaper the Australian.

Part of Nasa's gripe with the film, it emerged, was the mushrooming mailbags it had triggered. "The agency is getting so many questions from people terrified that the world is going to end in 2012 that we have had to put up a special website to challenge the myths. We have never had to do this before."

They also were unhappy with the use of neutrino particles, which in the film cause solar flares, earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but which in fact can't interact with physical substances.

The Day After Tomorrow (global warming, accelerated), The Sixth Day (insta-clones), Chain Reaction (bubble fusion), The Core (magnetic field trouble), What the Bleep Do We Know? (billed as a documentary) and Volcano (LA sprouts a volcano) were also singled out for their factual shortcomings. Armageddon – in which an asteroid the size of Texas is blown to bits to save our planet – was the most surprising inclusion on the damned list, as Nasa originally supported the film.

The agency had praise, however, for the attention to scientific accuracy exhibited in Gattaca (recruitment via DNA), Blade Runner, Metropolis and Jurassic Park.

WarOne wrote:Really? Don't you think NASA has better things to do than this?

News Article wrote:
Part of Nasa's gripe with the film, it emerged, was the mushrooming mailbags it had triggered. "The agency is getting so many questions from people terrified that the world is going to end in 2012 that we have had to put up a special website to challenge the myths. We have never had to do this before."

DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Nipping the mob mentality in the bud seems to be the reason, and one I would consider worthy.

Unable to pass an annual spending bill in this legislative session, the U.S. Congress approved a temporary government funding measure Tuesday, cutting nearly $300 million from NASA's expected budget and potentially limiting action on new space exploration programs.

President Obama was expected to sign the continuing resolution late Tuesday, ensuring the government remains functioning before the current budget expires at midnight.

The temporary budget funds the federal government through March 4 near fiscal year 2010 levels. For NASA, that means an annual budget rate around $18.7 billion if the continuing resolution was extended through fiscal year 2011, which began Oct. 1 and runs for 12 months.

The continuing resolution came after Senate Republicans thwarted attempts by Democratic leaders to pass a full-year budget.

Federal funding beyond March 4 will be decided by the next Congress. Incoming Republican leadership in the House of Representatives has vowed to roll back discretionary spending to fiscal year 2008 levels, setting the stage for a budget battle in the opening weeks of the next Congress.

The legislation passed the Senate by a 79-16 vote Tuesday afternoon, and the House agreed to the continuing resolution several hours later.

The continuing resolution does not include amendments for NASA, meaning the space agency will receive roughly the same budget as in fiscal year 2010. It also does not explicitly direct NASA to commence development of a government-owned heavy-lift rocket and multi-purpose crew vehicle for space exploration missions.

The exploration programs were included in the NASA authorization act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in October. But the authorization is only a budget blueprint, and specific funding levels must be decided in appropriations legislation.

Congress did not pass any full-year appropriations bills before recessing for the Christmas holiday, leaving NASA in limbo as agency officials attempt to overcome significant differences in the continuing resolution and the authorization act.

The authorization budget called for $19 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2011, upping cash for an extra space shuttle mission, commercial crew and cargo programs, and initiating a redesigned space exploration program.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, told NASA and Obama administration officials earlier this month that a multi-month continuing resolution should not add any major burdens to NASA's goals for the next year.

"If we just get a continuing resolution of fiscal year 2010, NASA's funding there is $18.7 billion," Nelson said in a hearing in early December, anticipating a continuing resolution similar to the measure passed Tuesday. "That is, in this context of this economic recession that we're in, $300 million less than a $19 billion authorization. That's 1.67 percent of the total authorization."

"That funding level for the next fiscal year will be right about at where it is in the authorization bill," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in the Dec. 1 hearing. "So this should be a simple task if we really all want to accomplish it. And so the proof will be in the pudding if it gets done."

The flat funding in the continuing resolution will also challenge NASA's efforts to address new costs on several programs, including the James Webb Space Telescope and an expanded Earth observation satellite system.

Another hurdle facing NASA is language carried over from last year's appropriations prohibiting the agency from terminating parts of the Constellation moon program or starting new efforts.

Officials are reviewing how best to proceed as the agency tries to reconcile the competing authorization and appropriations legislation.

corpsesarefun wrote:Warone your avatar is both hypnotic and deeply disturbing.

FITZZ wrote: NASA did this because it's all true...everything we saw unfold in the film will actually happen in 2012,and the "experts" at NASA are simply trying to pacify us until the inevitable end comes...we are all doomed.

WarOne wrote:

DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Nipping the mob mentality in the bud seems to be the reason, and one I would consider worthy.

It would be fine... except that NASA should be trying to convince the government to give them more money:

Mannahnin wrote:
No argument with that, but of course you're creating a false dichotomy. There's no reason they can't BOTH try to get some damn funding AND try to occasionally disabuse the public of utterly ridiculous misconceptions about science at the same time. Personally I'd say the latter is a reasonable use of some small percentage of their time.

Mannahnin wrote:

WarOne wrote:

DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Nipping the mob mentality in the bud seems to be the reason, and one I would consider worthy.

It would be fine... except that NASA should be trying to convince the government to give them more money:

No argument with that, but of course you're creating a false dichotomy. There's no reason they can't BOTH try to get some damn funding AND try to occasionally disabuse the public of utterly ridiculous misconceptions about science at the same time. Personally I'd say the latter is a reasonable use of some small percentage of their time.

Mannahnin wrote:

WarOne wrote:

DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Nipping the mob mentality in the bud seems to be the reason, and one I would consider worthy.

It would be fine... except that NASA should be trying to convince the government to give them more money:

No argument with that, but of course you're creating a false dichotomy. There's no reason they can't BOTH try to get some damn funding AND try to occasionally disabuse the public of utterly ridiculous misconceptions about science at the same time. Personally I'd say the latter is a reasonable use of some small percentage of their time.

Mannahnin wrote:It is pointless to disabuse people of terrible, nonsensical ideas?