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Mistakes

While the guys are going for their physicals, there's a scene in which blood is drawn and you can clearly see the tube connected to the end of the syringe pumping fake blood into the container. See more...

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Space Cowboys (2000) - 22 corrections

Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Courtney B. Vance, Donald Sutherland, James Cromwell, James Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Tommy Lee Jones (add more)

Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Sci-fi, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

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Just curious - we first meet the characters in the year 1958 when they were test pilots. In real life Tommy Lee Jones was about 12 years old in 1958. The Eastwood, Garner and Sutherland characters' ages made more sense. They would have been in their mid to late 20s in 1958. Oh well, it's still fun watching these four stars together. [It is very common practice in films to use actors to play characters of certain ages regardless of how old they actually are.]
Edit
When the astronauts finally get to IKON, everyone is amazed at how big it is. Now come on! Russia begs the U.S. to fix their satellite, NASA spends about a billion dollars getting a mission up there, man-years are spent training astronauts, and they don't even know what the satellite looks like? [The Russian Satellite was a SECRET weapon developed in the Cold War. To keep from divuldging secrets and refusal to help, the Russian General kept things secret till the crew needed to know what was going on. Also years weren't spent training the Astronauts for this mission, as they state at the mission briefing that this is an emergency mission to go up in 30 days. In 30 days, lots of information could be passed on a "need to know" basis. To me, this sounds exactly like Russia and US behaviour.]
Edit Corrected by dablues7
During the landing, the shuttle is coming in too hot, and the Flight Controller remarks that he (Frank) has fried his antenna. How, then, could he talk to the chase planes when he gets lower? Without an antenna he would not be able to hear or talk to them. [This is a question, not a mistake. The chase planes are only a few hundred yards away; it would not require the main antenna to transmit to them.]
Edit Corrected by BocaDavie
Each STS, or Shuttle Transport System, mission is given a sequential number. STS-1, STS-2, and so on. As of November 2001, NASA was only on its 108th STS mission, yet this movie, which takes place in 2000, refers to a mission as STS-200. [Not necessarily a problem. When NASA assigns manifest numbers (STS-x) for a "launch on need" (ie rescue) mission, they have used "STS-3xx". The use of a -200 number therefore is conceivable.]
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Clint Eastwood orders everyone to bail out, since his landing is likely to be a spectacular crash. Donald Sutherland blows the hatch and obligingly throws out the two disabled astronauts, though he and Garner stick with Clint through the hairy landing. In all the excitement, Clint forgets to tell NASA that two unconscious guys are now descending into the ocean by parachute, and must be rescued before they drown. [Mission Control was already aware of a number of other details; it's not inconceivable that the crew could have let them know at some point off-camera.]
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During the countdown to liftoff, the main engines are fired at T minus seven seconds. In reality, they are fired at T minus three seconds. [The SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engine)DO ignite at T-6.7 sec to allow them to be at full operating power (all 3 greater than 90% thrust) before the onboard computers will ignite the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters)at T-0.]
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As the shuttle approches Ikon, their rader activates the on-board systems. But they are in space. Radar is a sound based system and sound doesn't travel in space. [Um, no, might want to check your facts there. Radar uses electromagnetic waves, which travel perfectly well in space. You're confusing it with sonar, which uses sound.]
Edit Corrected by Tailkinker
In the scene where Frank confronts Gerson in his office about not sending them into space, you can clearly see that the second hand on the clock in the background is not moving. [Maybe the battery in the clock is dead. Happens often enough.]
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When Clint is out of the shuttle, you can see a reflection of the Earth in the visor. On the outer shots you can tell he's at a fairly low altitude in comparision to the distances reached be Apollo. Yet, you can see the whole Earth in the visor - he is far too close to be having reflections of the complete Earth. [The visors on the helmets are convex, thus, "objects in mirror are larger than they appear".]
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If the satellite is that dangerous, why not just shoot it down with a tactical nuclear missile? It would destroy the satellite and its missiles and 1000 miles up is more than enough to ensure that radioactive fallout would not re-enter the atmosphere. Or better yet, strap a nuclear device to the side and blow it up by remote instead of going to all the trouble to disarm it. The satellite doesn't react to physical contact, only radar. [How many other satellites, worth billions of dollars, would be destroyed by the EMP? What would effect the loss of communication satellites have on the world's economy? Loss of weather satellites? Loss of spy satellites?]
Edit Corrected by Rlvlk
The Russian satellite was said to be 1,000 miles up. They should have known it wasn't a communications satellite because they are 23,500 miles up in geosynchronous orbit. [It makes perfect sense to put a comsat in geosynchronous orbit. In fact, the Russians are the only people who don't: their Molniya series of communications satellites have very eccentric orbits with an apogee of around 25,000 miles and a perigee of around 150 miles (this is to allow one satellite to cover all of the USSR/Russia at once). See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx470.html. So it would be reasonable to find a Russian communications satellite at either distance. Whether or not an unmodified space shuttle can reach an orbit of either 1000 miles or 23,000 miles is another question since most US space missions have orbits of less than 300 miles.]
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In the final scene we see the wreckage of IKON on the moon and Tommy Lee Jones' body propped up against a rock, where he has supposedly dragged himself. In reality his spacesuit's air supply would have run out long before he ever reached the Moon. [When Hawk first makes the decision to fly to the moon, he says "I'm going to need all the extra O2 modules you've got. Even if they couldn't load the spacesuit with oxygen, they could have put even more modules on IKON. There would have been plenty of oxygen to get him to the moon, as extra O2 is always sent up on missions in the event of an emergency EVA.]
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When Eastwood leaves the cabin in his space suit, he fails to close the airlock hatch door and proceeds to the MMU station, yet when Sutherland comes out the door it has been closed. Eastwood is the only one who could close the door as the others would have no way of accessing the hatch into the shuttle bay. [As Frank exits the spacecraft, the secondary airlock door opens itself, as it controlled by actuators. Therefore, the door likely closed itself, or was closed by the crew, while the camera was focused on Frank and the MMU.]
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Bless his soul. Tommy Lee Jones has sacrificed his life in order to get the dodgy Russian satellite to crash on the moon. Rather than disintegrate on impact (as it should) you can see big bits of the satellite on the moon's surface AND the dead astronaut sitting against a rock. [Now, why would the satellite disintegrate? The moon has no atmosphere. If the satellite really DID make it to the moon (a highy, highy unlikely event), parts of the satellite would be on the moon's surface.]
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When the team is preparing for Blast off they all pull down their visors prior to launch. Before the visor is pulled down Jerry doesn't have his sunglasses on, yet immediately after he pulls his visor down they're on his face. [Jerry's sunglasses are on the whole time, his face is just blocked by Tank's arm during the shot where they're pulling down their visors. (It may take viewing the shot frame by frame, possibly with a "zoom" option on, but the glasses can be seen for a brief moment over Tank's arm.)]
Edit
In the first mess hall scene, Eastwood has his ID card but after the young astronaut team sends them drinks the ID card is gone but is seen again in the next shot. [The ID is on a chain around Clint's neck. It's not visible because James Garner's shoulder is blocking Clint, but that doesn't mean the ID is no longer there.]
Edit Corrected by ChiChi
The Junior Astronaut pulls a plug on the dodgy Russian satellite and explosion follows following which the shuttle is hit by debris. There is a small fire in the shuttle. The smoke goes up. As the shuttle is supposed to be in weightlessness this means smoke will hover around the fire rather than go up (the fire could in theory extinguish itself due to carbon dioxide building up near it as well (which would normally go down to the floor as it is heavier than air) (for the physicists amongst us: that's why a candle can't burn in weightlessness). [Candles burn just fine in zero-G. See:http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/combustion/cfm/mir_results.htm]
Edit
So what if the shuttle loses power? Once you re-enter the atmosphere safely, the shuttle does have ejection seats. Granted ejecting at those speeds is dangerous, but it beats the chances an unplanned, manual descent gives. [In a report delivered to NASA on March 25, 2003, the Aerospac Safety Advisory Panel called on NASA, among other things, "...to renew efforts to develop and install space shuttle ejection systems or to report back to the committee on why such equipment is impossible to put on the spacecraft." There are no ejection seats on the shuttle.]
Edit Corrected by Bruce
Have you ever heard of them re-naming a shuttle based on the first team that flies it? [Eastwood refused to do the mission if he didn't get his team and the shuttle name.]
Edit Corrected by Grumpy Scot
Frank is told by that guy (can't remember his name) that Hawk didn't pass his physical and has cancer. However, later on, the lady with the dark hair says that Hawk passed his physical even with the cancer and can still go into space. Make sense? Nope. [The implication is that Hawk *could* be disqualified on the basis of his cancer, but seeing as he is otherwise healthy and capable, they can still let him fly on the mission.]
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