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Space Cowboys (2000)
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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pretty much. Soviets always seemed to favor the brute-force approach. They also seemed to be obsessed with having the biggest.

But my point about the Sanger was about how it got to it's target. They didn't have the power to achieve a high enough orbit, so they designed the Sanger to skip across the atmosphere. That's what I had in mind for the warheads, they would skip across the atmosphere like a stone on water.

David.
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Sun May 12, 2019 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



Gather now all ye olde astronauts — Clint Eastwood is the adamant NASA astronaut who collects fellow oldsters Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland for a special mission in space.

Jones was actually over a decade younger than the other actors, so had to play older than he was. Ironically, he also plays the one character with serious health problems.

Most of the film is grounded in reality on Earth, despite the outlandish premise, as Eastwood's character has to hurdle various obstacles and training to get this mission off the ground, so to speak. In the final act, we get the impressive FX in outer space.

Also in smaller roles as NASA bigwigs are William Devane and James Cromwell. As various women involved with the men we have Marcia Gay Harden, Blair Brown, and Barbara Babcock.

I guess this was Eastwood's homage to the Air Force test pilots and the pioneering astronauts of 3 & 4 decades earlier, giving them a "return to glory fling" with the movie representations her. It's interesting and must-see viewing for any fans of NASA and its history.

The climactic scenes indicate a technology we don't really possess and are a bit science fiction in their scope. And, improbably, it ends with a final shot on the moon, a little haunting and lyrical at the same time.

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10


__________________Space Cowboys - Trailer


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BoG
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 11, 2023 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production. Very Happy
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~ N.A.S.A. offered their "vomit comet" plane that can create weightlessness, for filming (it was previously used in Apollo 13 (1995) for the weightless scenes). Clint Eastwood turned down the offer for fear that the older actors would be made too sick to film.

Note from me: I'm afraid Clint was right. Old guys like them (and me) can't do things like they did when they were younger. These elderly gentlemen would be barfing their toenails out if they went up in that crazy plane! Shocked

~ Filming was hard on the actors: James Garner dislocated his shoulder, and Donald Sutherland cracked a knee.

Note from me: See my former comment. I rest my case.

~ Clint Eastwood was initially just going to star in and produce this movie, not direct it. After potential directors thought filming space travel would be too difficult, he decided to do it himself.

Note from me: And by gum, Clint did a great job!

~ The "Asshole Centering Module" is a closed-circuit video system used during ground-based Shuttle astronaut training. It displays a view of the astronaut's posterior so he can properly position himself when using the Waste Collection System.

Note from me: Let me get this straight. NASA has to use a special camera to train astronauts to put their asses in the right place . . . so they can crap in space! . so they can crap in space! Shocked

~ The Mission Control set was built using blueprints of the real Mission Control, provided by N.A.S.A.

Note from me: Well now . . . no one can fault the movie for not presenting a realistic Mission Control!

~ Real astronauts who saw an early screening of the movie were impressed by how realistic space looked.

Note from me: That's good to know. I was certainly impressed with the magnificent special effects.






~ The scenes out in space were entirely computer graphics. The actors' faces were added in digitally.

Note from me: Wow, things have certainly changed. In the 1950s, the actors had to wear the spacesuits and hang on wires while the camera tried to got shots that convinced the audience that they were space.

Now, not only are the shots totally convincing, creating them is so much easier. It's sort of like the way I wrote my four novels on yellow legal pads with ballpoint pins in the 1980s — and now I have a computer which makes the whole process incredibly easy and more enjoyable! Very Happy

~ Clint Eastwood would film the actors improvising a scene, then use that footage in the movie. "Donald would say, 'Are we rehearsing now; what are we doing?' and I'd say, 'No that's it.'"

Note from me: Amazing! Compare this to the stories we've heard about tyrannical directors who insist that everything be done exactly as they demand.

~ The Modelling Department put a Space Mr. Coffee in the cargo bay of the shuttle. This was the idea of chief modelmaker Adam Savage, former co-host of MythBusters (2003) on the Discovery Channel.

Note from me: My old friend, the late Tim Edwards (aka Bulldogtrekker), was a big fan of MythBusters, and he would have loved the fact that Mr. Savage contributed his talent to his movie. Very Happy

~ Writer Howard Klausner had actually finished the screenplay and was shopping it around Hollywood long before it was announced that astronaut John Glenn would be returning to space.

Note from me: When John Glenn went up on the Space Shuttle in 1998, the 5th grade class I taught watched the launch in my classroom, which was equipped with my own large TV and a sound system with four speakers at the corners of the room, surrounding it to provide an awesome audio of the event!

During the three days prior to the launch on Thursday, October 29, 1998, my students made trips to the school library to do research about John Glenn and the Mercury program. They wrote reports and turned them in for a grade.

The reports were awesome . . . Cool

When the big day came and we watched the launch live in our classroom (with my surround sound system shaking the room during the liftoff), the kids were on their feet, screaming cheers like, "Go, John Glenn!" at the top of their voices!



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Fortunately our classroom was one of those large modular units which were located with others on the grounds behind the main builds of this brand new school, Lake City Elementary, which was already overcrowded during it's opening year!




But that meant the deafening noise we were making was only heard by a few units on either side of us — and they were watching the launch, too! Very Happy

I was extremely proud to have inspired these kids from the 1990s to feel the same enthusiasm for this great event that I felt in the 1960s, when the Mercury launches were aired on TV for the whole world! Cool

_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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