Midnight Picks: Did "Space Camp" ruin NASA?

It's no question "Space Camp" (1986) was part of a propoganda quest by NASA to renew the imaginitive interest in other-world exploration that had all-but-evaporated in American culture in the Reagan years, much due to the fact that the Space Shuttle program was done in the name of science and less in the interest of inspiring sound bites that permeated the Apollo endeavor. But thanks to the fact that everyone who works for NASA in "Space Camp" are Darwinist failures, plus the ingenious PR notion of selling the flick to audiences just five months after the tragic Challenger disaster, it's no question why this operation was dead-in-orbit.

Here you have a bunch of kids out for a fun, scientific summer, learning what it takes to be an astronaut at the NASA space camp in Huntsville, AL (hey, that makes it the best movie ever filmed in Huntsville, AL!). Their instructors include Alien-fodder Tom Skerritt and the phony-southern accent-toting Kate Capshaw, who audiences might be surprised to find has landed another role after she whined Temple of Doom into the flop its considered to be -- until they see her spend most of the flick in a skin-tight NASA-issue tank top and discover the two reasons why she's still working -- that, and the fact she's married to Steven Spielberg.

As you might guess, Kate's pretty much out of the picture
once she straps on the suit.

I got the priveledge this weekend of running "Space Camp" by someone who's actually been there, and he immediately dispelled the tasks the teens in it are subjected to as phony, which was a relief because it's just good to know Space Camp cadettes are not allowed to board a fully fueled shuttle and administer its main engine test for a scheduled flight later that day.

Leaf Phoenix with Jinx, the bastard son
of R2-D2.

The perillous plot is set in motion when nerdy pre-teen Leaf Phoenix (who would later become Academy-Award nominee and schitzophrenic rapper Joaquin) befriends the billion dollar space program robot Jink, who "literally does whatever he's...told!" Even though the NASA brass know he's stolen this tax-payer fleeced garbage can handy-man and is keeping it in his closet, they decide to let him keep it anyway, and when Jink overhears ole buddy Leaf's desperate cry to be sent to space, he complies, hardwiring the kid's name into the NASA computer's shuttle flight roster so he and his unwitting teenage colleagues will be in for the Space Camp tuition of a lifetime.

(This reminds me, by the way: which flick created the USB drive, "Space Camp", or RoboCop?)

The student trainees then board the slated shuttle, and are surprised -- along with mission control -- that a bunch of kids could screw up something so simple as checking to see if the booster rockets work! As they jet on into the last frontier, in desperate need of oxygen, and years of flight training to control the behemoth ship, NASA strives harder than any other mission that came before to bring everyone home safely. And with Tom Skerritt at the helm, who we already know can't find his way out of a Nostromo air vent, we know they're all in good hands, especially when he makes the decision to handle the catastrophically botched mission in-house, disregarding all his colleagues' suggestions that he might want to let the president know about it.

"I think more kids should fly to space."

Yes, in any other genre, "Space Camp" would be a dark-government-secret flick, shrouded in cover-ups and paranoia. But, since it's for kids, you gotta look at it all with a grain of rapidly venting oxygen.

WHAT YOU CAN DRINK WHILE BRAVING THE PERILS OF "SPACE CAMP"