Space Cowboys

Factual error: In many scenes in space, the stars are shown twinkling or flickering. This occurs only when seen through an atmosphere.

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Suggested correction: Stars also twinkle or flicker due to intervening interstellar gas clouds, so this is no error.

ReRyRo

Factual error: At one point, the rotating solar power panels on IKON slam into the Shuttle, wrapping around the nose. That's bad for the astronauts! The tiles all over the Shuttle are used to absorb the tremendous heat of reentry. They are also very brittle. An impact like that would have torn them off by the hundreds, making reentry impossible.

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Suggested correction: The nose was Reinforced Carbon Carbon, or RCC, like the leading edge wing. The tiles were further back.

Factual error: The shuttle re-entry being nose-down could never happen. You had to hit the atmosphere nose-up so the ceramic tiles took the heat.

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Suggested correction: Not totally true, the nose and leading edge wing were RCC and could take 2300°F, just like the tiles on the underside.

Factual error: The Russian says that the missiles in IKON are locked onto American cities. The implication is that those cities will be destroyed if Eastwood screws up. Actually, since the orbit has decayed from geosynchronous (an altitude of roughly 22,000 miles) to low Earth orbit at 1000 miles, I don't think the missile guidance systems would get a chance to work. If the missiles were launched, they would simply shoot down toward the Earth and blow up wherever they happened to be. So, prayers to anyone unlucky enough to be directly below those missles.

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Suggested correction: Entry states an implication. This may have been inferred by this one viewer, but the movie never stated any such thing, so therefore it cannot be considered an error.

ReRyRo

Factual error: A couple of times during the film, someone exclaims in horror that if this-or-that system fails, they will have to land the shuttle dead-stick (unpowered; no chance to veer off and try again). Actually, all shuttle landings are dead-stick; they are computer guided but nevertheless are unpowered, one-shot deals.

More mistakes in Space Cowboys

Frank Corvin: You sent us up to this bastard, have us put it back into orbit, fully armed, just to save your own ass?

More quotes from Space Cowboys

Question: What are the chances of four guys of their age ACTUALLY passing the physical to the required standards? I know they all kept reasonably fit but they struggled with running etc. so it seems unlikely they would pass all the tests. I know movie rules dictate suspense of disbelief to a certain degree, I'm just wondering what their chances would be in reality.

The_Iceman

Answer: Eastwood would be out on height alone and the rest probably have high blood pressure. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/606877main_FS-2011-11-057-JSC-astro_trng.pdf.

Chosen answer: It wasn't a matter of how physically fit they were, but that their particular combination of knowledge, skills, and past experiences were needed for this specific mission. The physical criteria would be amended in order to recruit them for that mission.

raywest

They were specifically told they wouldn't be given an easier ride and would need to pass the exact same tests as the younger astronauts. The physical criteria wouldn't have been amended to suit them so is it possible for 4 guys of this age to pass?

The_Iceman

Remember that at some point in the process it became a political issue - the old cowboys were wanted for their PR value, so physical test results would have been "fudged", if not ignored altogether.

ReRyRo

Agree that the physical requirements were a major plot point and part of the 'deal' for the team to go, but there was some relaxing of requirements and politics. In general, the answer is YES, old folks can go to space without major fudging of the requirements as was demonstrated by lots of astronauts in their late 50s, a few in their 60s, and John Genn at 77. Just recently an 82-year-old woman flew on Jeff Bezos' tourist rocket.

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