SpaceCamp (1986)
Trivia
The interior of the Space Shuttle Atlantis was filmed in the Atlantis simulator at the real Space Camp.
What was supposed to be a somewhat light hearted action/adventure movie turned into a marketing nightmare. SpaceCamp was scheduled to be released in early 1986 but on 28 January the real-life 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.
Joaquin Phoenix's feature film debut. He is credited as Leaf Phoenix.
According to Lea Thompson, because the numerous delays in filming, the cast and crew jokingly wore T-shirts saying "SpaceCramp".
The space shuttle set was put on top of a gimbal in order to effectively simulate weightlessness in space.
The movie was partially filmed at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama home to the first and last remaining Space Camp program.
The footage of the Space Shuttle Orbiter landing is from Challenger touching down at the conclusion of STS-8. This was the first night landing of the Space Shuttle program.
In earlier drafts of the storyline, a Russian shuttle is sent up to rescue the American kids. At the end of the film, it was to be revealed that Russian kids had rescued the American kids.
In the scene in which Jinx asks the NASA computer about launch possibilities (the second scene involving Jinx and the computer), as the computer monitor rapidly flashes data on the screen, a couple of hidden messages are included, but only for one or two frames each. On the display of the shuttle's main engine, the caption reads "Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) burns liquid hydrogen & liquid oxygen fuel (as if anyone didn't know that, I must say...)" The next frame features a message saying "Don't get down on the DSK thrust factor, man". And the following frame displays a message saying "Three SSME's are on the orbiter's aft end, which is driving (@27,000 Knm) me quite mental". (The messages are references to Martin Short's character "Ed Grimley", who was popular on Saturday Night Live (1975) at the time the film was being produced.)
This film was originally supposed to take three months to shoot. However, the movie fell ten days behind schedule on the first day of shooting and wound up taking six months altogether to complete.
Lea Thompson and Mitchell Anderson both made appearances in the "Jaws" franchise. Mitchell Anderson appeared as Sean Brody in "Jaws: The Revenge" and Lea Thompson appeared in "Jaws 3", in which she coincidentally plays Sean Brody's girlfriend.
The song that is playing in the car when Tate pulls up to the camp is "Forever Man" by Eric Clapton, which was released the previous year on his album 'Behind the Sun'.
When Andie leads the Blue Team inside the building, The Shuttle Simulator is named The Right Stuff (1983), a reference to the book and film by Tom Wolfe. "The Right Stuff" is also an award given to space campers who demonstrate "leadership, sound decision making, and the seeking and sharing of knowledge"
