There were some 60 roleplayers, plus assorted special effects crews, staging the event.

FORBES: Zombies Battle Navy SEALs for Afghan Village

Three people were treated at the scene by ambulance crews for the effects of breathing in smoke and one was taken to hospital as a precaution.

BBC: Waterlooville Co-op store destroyed by freezer fire

Second, Ari Rapkin, a computer graphics software engineer at ILM, introduces an amazing paradox: What the special-effects crews are doing is often not emulating physics but tweaking it--because storytelling is better served by showing the audience what it expects, not what would actually happen if a 3-foot-tall creature drew his light saber.

FORBES

Trash tiles could, for example, bolster the space radiation shielding around the astronauts' sleeping quarters or perhaps a small area in the spacecraft that would be built up to serve as a storm shelter to protect crews from solar flare effects, NASA officials said.

MSN: NASA hopes astronaut trash can be used as radiation shield

And we have much to learn about their long-term effects before human crews can venture through the vast voids of space for months at a time.

CNN: Bush: 'It is time for America to take the next steps' in space