Corrected entry: Have you ever heard of them re-naming a shuttle based on the first team that flies it?
Corrected entry: Frank is told 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.
Correction: 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.
Corrected entry: To save the day, Hawk decides to stay with the IKON as he blows it out of harm's way using the onboard rockets. If Hawk was the only available pilot (the other got knocked out), how could Eastwood fly the shuttle? We never saw him in a simulator or piloting anything!
Correction: True, he wasn't shown piloting anything, but it was said at other times in the movie that he was a pilot. For example, in the scene where he's introducing the guys to Marcia Gay Harden, he says Hawk is "the best pilot the Air Force ever had, next to me."
Corrected entry: They only have a month to train. In that time they would train for the mission and just let a trained pilot/commander fly. Also, they wouldn't take time out from training to go to CA to be on Leno.
Correction: The flight training of the geriatric pilots is a critical plot point since they do in fact end up having to pilot the shuttle. As is explained in the movie, NASA decides that the publicity value of the astronauts is more important than the details of the mission. NASA would certainly have made the elderly astronauts available for the Leno show's taping, and probably could have accomplished it in a half day by using NASA executive jets between Houston and Burbank.
Correction: While in space, Ethan tells Frank that his team was nothing but a publicity stunt. A publicity stunt would be sent to Leno. Besides, they all love to fly fast. They would get to CA in no time.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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?
Corrected entry: 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).
Correction: Candles burn just fine in zero-G. See:http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/combustion/cfm/mir_results.htm.
Corrected entry: 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.
Correction: 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.
Correction: Eastwood refused to do the mission if he didn't get his team and the shuttle name.
Grumpy Scot