SpaceCamp

What was supposed to be a somewhat light-hearted action/adventure movie turned into a marketing nightmare. SpaceCamp was originally scheduled to be released in early 1986 but on January 28 of that year the real-life space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after liftoff, claiming the lives of seven American astronauts. After the Challenger disaster the release was pushed back months. When it was finally sent to theaters, it grossed less than $10 million in the U.S. Like the Challenger accident, the malfunction in the film involved a solid rocket booster.

The shuttle program had several abort options prior to achieving orbit. There was a return to launch site abort, meaning after dropping the solid rocket boosters they would turn about and go right back. There was also a transatlantic abort (land in a friendly foreign country in Europe) or abort once around (one orbit and back in). In all cases, the shuttle could've returned pretty quickly. Of course, then there would've been no movie. However, it should be noted that NASA never actually tested any of these space shuttle launch abort functions which was noted in the Challenger accident report. So there's no way to know if they would have actually worked.

Featured in The Goldbergs: Smother's Day (2016)