Goofs

Dr. Drayden announces that the facility is the "Snake Mountain Proving Grounds," but the sign at the entrance reads "White Snake Proving Grounds."

Somehow between minute 2: 38 and 3: 42 the OSI people in the Jeeps were able to don radioactive protective suits, while driving helter-skelter across the desert, including the drivers.

After receiving information about the meteor swarm from Mount Palomar Observatory, Dr. Stanton announces that the launch time will be "17 minutes, 12 seconds after 5:00 AM. Fifty-four minutes from now." That would make the current time 4:23 AM, a time of total darkness. However, all external shots after Stanton's statement show full daylight.

At 3:42 the Jeeps are parked close beside a tree which they passed by at 3:39.

The basic "scientific" premise of the film is that cosmic rays crystallize and pulverize metal and other materials in space, but that meteors are unaffected by cosmic rays - hence the movie's plot, to go into space to capture a meteor and find out what substance protects it from such rays. But in fact cosmic rays do not crystallize or in any way affect any substance - in space, on Earth or anywhere else - as the film claims. Thus the entire premise of the film is erroneous, a fact that was well known at the time of the movie's release in 1954.

One of the astronaut candidates is being evaluated in a centrifuge by medical personnel. An X-ray of his chest showing his heart is reversed left to right. Also, a technician announces that the candidate's body temperature is 135, which is obviously incompatible with life.

As Stanton's rocket flies back to Earth, its altitude is reported first as 12,000 feet, and a few moments later as 5000 feet, yet both times it's still shown in outer space. The rocket is finally shown entering the atmosphere at an altitude of 1000 feet - all of these altitudes low, since the outermost edge of space is well in excess of 100,000 feet (about 20 miles) or more above the Earth's surface.

At 1:06:18, the radar operator is "checking the radar" on a blank screen with no activity on the screen.

The scene in which the astronaut is expelled from his spaceship and instantly turns into a skeleton is scientifically incorrect. The vacuum of outer space would instantly kill not only a human being, but also the microorganisms within the human body that cause it to decay after death. Therefore, a victim of this type of accident would look exactly as he did in life and be preserved indefinitely.

In the film's first minutes, two crews race through the desert to recover equipment from a rocket that has landed. One is in a truck pulling a trailer, and the trailer has a big black box in it. When the truck and trailer runs over plants and bumps, the trailer bounces around and, in a quick shot, the big black box is thrown out of the trailer. But it is still in the trailer in later shots, such as on reaching the landing site. Also a vehicle carrying electronic equipment that more than likely contained vacuum tubes before the invention of solid-state electronics would not be driven in such a reckless manner with unsecured cargo in the trailer. However, the contents of the box is never revealed, so whatever it contained could well have been able to withstand the rough ride.

During the launch countdown the actual time difference between announced 30, 20, and 10 seconds is only several seconds each. Also, when a view of the rocket is shown at 4 seconds before launch, you can see people walking around near the rocket.

When Dr. Delmar calls for a voice check from each of the pilots just before the rockets take off, their names - "Gordon - Lockwood - Stanton" are heard coming over the radio in response. But it is plain that all three replies are being voiced by actor/director Richard Carlson (who plays Lockwood).

When Lockwood panics in the rocket and begins to climb out of his seat, the film is run in slow motion to give the illusion of weightlessness. In these scenes, Lockwood's dialogue, even his screams, are all clearly looped in post-production, as his mouth is closed throughout almost all of these scenes even as he's heard speaking.

At 1:10:15 Stanton Sr. tells Stanton Jr. to switch to automatic (remote control landing), immediately after that, Flynn tells Stanton Jr. to decelerate and fire nose rockets.

Early in the movie, the metal of a returned rocket is shown to have become extremely brittle, because of exposure to cosmic rays. Dr. Stanton decides that since meteors don't disintegrate in outer space, they must be coated with a substance that resists cosmic rays. This substance is burned off when the meteor passes through Earth's atmosphere. So, Stanton inaugurates a program to send manned rockets to scoop up some meteors while they're still in outer space. But, because the protective substance has not yet been identified and applied to protect the rockets, the astronauts still face obliteration due to the metal fatigue from cosmic rays.

Only three manned rockets are sent to collect the meteors for study. Three meteors would be a microscopic sample of the uncountable number of them in space, and there could be no guarantee that the three would contain the cosmic ray-impervious substance the scientists hope to discover.