This was the first time that I saw Kelly Preston

I watched this movie so many times as a kid. I wrote a letter to NASA asking all kinds of questions about it. They didn't answer my questions but they did send me a huge package of NASA swag. 😎

I was an extra in this film. We had a good time. Lea Thompson was an absolute joy to work with. People were so much nicer back then. The film crew was like a family.

The 80's what a gift to grow up in that era.

This scene still gives me chills to this day. I watched this movie countless times with dreams of going to space when I was 11.

Back in the day before we slipped into the darkest timeline. Been watching this, Star Trek stuff, and 2010 to be reminded of when we dreamed about science and space. We believed we were headed for something greater. I miss that feeling.

this, short circuit, flight of the navigator, back to the future to name but a few .. was great time to be a kid lol.

Firmly in the 'overdue a rewatch' column.

This and Iron Eagle were probably the most true-to-life, fact based, and realistic documentaries ever shown.

Loved this movie as a kid, and now I'm 39 and still love this movie! God bless 80s movies!

This sweet little "kids" film now stands as one of the few popular documents of what the Space Shuttle program meant to the sensibilities of a generation. Who would ever have thought that this would be a depiction of a lost world.

Reasons why this film is TOTALLY AWESOME: 1. It shows a message that if you keep a level head and work together, you can come through anything. 2. Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt. Not to mention a young and gorgeous Lea Thompson. 3. Riding the Space Shuttle. 4. Jinx is a cool little robot. Almost as awesome as R2-D2 and C-3PO. Reasons this movie would never have happened: 1. SpaceCampers would never be allowed to sit in an engine test. Remember the Apollo 1 fire? That was an engine test. 2. Each Shuttle was fully provisioned every time it was on the pad. 3. Aircraft seemed to go into flat spins every time Tom Skerritt was in a movie involving planes (this and Top Gun). 4. Jinx had WAY too easy access to NASA's computer! All in all, an AWESOME movie!

I love the DVD extras which shows the C-SPAN coverage of the Congressional hearings, where the Director of NASA had to explain why NASA just spent $450 million dollars by accidentally launching a space shuttle with a bunch of children on board.

This movie made us feel better as kids, it's as if we redeemed the Challenger disaster and honored them.

RIP Kelly Preston

You know it's an 80s movie when the music is whimsical and then turns into a 90s drama.

I owned this movie as an 8 year old. I must have watched it a thousand times, without exaggerating! I’m still saying the lines, at 42 I remember every word! Insanity! God bless the 80’s

Holy Crap! Their trashcan totally shot them into space and made them all astronauts. I wish my trashcan could do that.

There was something just so magical about a shuttle liftoff! Goosebumps.

The Shuttles had such great names didn't they? Enterprise, Discovery, Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Endeavor....I mean damn....poetry. RIP Kelly...you are missed woman.

3:49 I just love the part where the technican is urging 'Go Baby Go!' Then Viper from Top Gun goes ' My God, we have lift off!'. Such a great film!

NASA director: Hey let’s put a bunch of kids and a former astronaut up in a shuttle and fire the engines. What could go wrong

I must have seen this over 150 times. I know the entire script man. Amazing childhood memories. This would never happen in a million years but it was the stuff of dreams man.

"Light it or they're gonna die!" is a quote that has stayed with me for over three decades! Totally forgot Joachim Phoenix was in this 80' flick lol

I know in hindsight the Shuttle was not nearly as safe or reusable as originally intended, but it is the most unique Rocket in history and I still love it lol.

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the 1980s super casting of Cate Capshaw (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) Leah Thompson (Back to the Future) Kelly(๏人 ๏)Preston (John Travolta’s Wife) Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) Tom Skerrit (Alien) Larry B Scott (Revenge of the Nerds)

This was my favorite movie as a kid. Now I'm grown with my own kid who has earned a prestigious STEM award in Cub Scouts, one very few kids ever get, and I am the unit's STEM awards counselor. When we made the presentation video for his awards ceremony, I used the music from this movie as background. Very ethereal!

Considering this movie came out right after challenger, it truly is bittersweet, especially those 5 seconds or so when they call for throttle up and you can see the look on her face, as if they were trying to really portray the challenger blew up prior to this test....and we all know the challenger broke up practically a second after the go at throttle up call. That is too eerie.

You've got Lea Thompson and Kate Capshaw in the same movie with a score by John Williams -- feels like a forgotten Spielberg classic, but he had nothing to do with it.

I watched this movie so many times as a kid and wished I was one of them going to space, what a great movie this was.

Everyone working at Command Center: "We just launched a bunch of teenagers into space. I am SO FIRED."

I remember watching this in the theatre. Rest In Peace Kelly Preston. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

NASA puts kids in a shuttle for an engine test.... mechanical problem forces them to launch the shuttle. Seems legit.

We need more movies like this today for kids. When I was young this got me excited about science and space.

Oh the 1980s, the decade of dreams for so many kids and how every career was within your grasp. Saw this movie in 8th grade and immediately wanted to go to Space Camp and become an astronaut and work in space on the next generation of space shuttles. Reality, you need to become a senior military officer winged aviator with a PhD around middle age and you too will have a 1 in a million shot of being an astronaut who never sees a mission.

Kelly Preston died of Breast Cancer. She was in alot of movies back in the 80s and I loved Secret Admirer, Space Camp.

I was so in love with Lea Thompson back then. She was like the smart "hot girl".

Putting all the inaccuracies of this film aside as a child, i loved it. Made me dream of going into space. Would be awesome if Spacecamp actually let kids into the shuttle for an engine test, but i highly doubt anything would have been permitted.

I was in elementary school in South Florida when the Challenger disaster happened. We were all gathered in the cafeteria to watch the launch which was the first with a civilian teacher. I remember being confused as to what happened then I saw parents and teacher crying along with out maintenance guy climbing up on the roof to see the smoke trail. Sad day.

Wow this movie brings back such childhood memories, thanks for sharing!

I went to space camp in 2008, and they showed us clips of this film. Made my entire damn experience.

Oh my good God. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I don’t think I’ve seen this scene in 20 years and I still knew it almost line for line. What a trip. Totally unrealistic, but man did this make me want to go to space camp when I was a kid. And Joaquin Phoenix as a kid. Wow.

I went to Spacecamp up in Montreal with my nephew about 15 years ago. It was part of a class trip! What an experience. On our final day we went to Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate... What a time!!!

It may have done lousy at the box office but I loved it!

Lol in the 80s I was like, "Cool!" Now I'm like: "So they test main engines with kids in the Shuttle?"

Such a great movie. Once they launched I was at the edge of my seat gripping the armchair the whole rest of the movie.

This was one of my favorite films growing up. Today. I just can’t imagine how crazy it was trying to film all these microgravity scenes.

A young Joaquin Phoenix and LOST's Terry O'Quinn with hair...all in the same scene? Golden!

Despite the flaws, I loved this movie. So sad it came out very close to the Challenger tradegy which hurt it at the box office.

God I miss the time when we made positive movies like this, when anything was possible. What the hell happened to our country? Take me back please.

This was the best movie. I remember going to the movies for $.75 with my $.25 popcorn and $.10 drink in 1987.

I have worked on multiple movies as a extra, in props and mostly security and also as a personal protection agent for multiple celebrities including Tom Skerritt on Steel Magnolias and he was a wonderful person.

This movie is what made me tell my mom I wanted to go to space camp. Sadly, it wasn’t nearly this exciting 😞

Aw the movies of the 1980s, where kids get to do amazing things with their genius minds or just plain cunning spirit! And the adults have to just go along with them, trying to help them get home. But in the end, the kids, however unlikely, end up not only pulling their own weight, but entertaining everyone to death! Daryl, Explorers, The Goonies, E.T., Cloak and Dagger, Space Camp, War Games, Back To The Future. I love the wiz kid movies of the 1980s.

I was privileged to witness Eleven lift off in 1969. Since then, every manned flight has been a thrill for me. There's just nothing like watching these massive, complex machines taking flight.

One of the Best movies of the 80's

Another terrific score by John Williams. Storywise, this could never happen

The Challenger disaster really screwed this movie's chances at becoming an 80s classic. I mean, to some people it is a piece of classic 80's nostalgia, but it doesn't rank very highly on most people's lists largely because it did so poorly at the box office. Being released just 5 months after the Challenger exploded, nobody was going to take their kids to see this. I was 9 years old at the time and I remember watching the shuttle explode at school. It was a national tragedy that haunted us for years, largely because it was the first time a civilian was actually aboard and it was a teacher at that. I remember watching this on VHS and loving it when I was a kid. I still enjoy it as an adult, but it light of both the Challenger (and Columbia disasters) this film requires even more suspension of disbelief than before given the absurdity of the plot which has children aboard a live engine test of a shuttle. One absurdity I never really considered as a kid: why was there an advanced AI (Jinx) which not only appears to be sentient, but also had the ability to interface with and override NASA's computers allowed to just roam around unsupervised? Why was there no security whatsoever at this government installation? I understand it's a plot contrivance to serve as a means of getting them into space, but they could have come up with something more realistic than that.

Aaaaaaaaand Tom Skerritt wanders on to the set of ANOTHER movie.

I remember watching this in the theater. My buddies and I all chipped in and had enough for one ticket. One of my buddies bought a ticket and opened the emergency exit so the rest of us could sneak in. Watched half of this movie from behind the screen. We stayed in the theater all day and watched about half a dozen movies. What a great time.

In the 80s this kind of thing happened to kids all the time.

"You mean to tell me that you told a robot with full access to NASA's systems launched a bunch of kids into space?" "I did. And I'm tired of pretending that I didn't." -Joanquin Phoenix, probably.

John Williams music for this movie is fantastic.

Watching this movie was the first time that I wanted to be an astronaut. In fact, they put out a Space Shuttle Operators Manual that had all of the cards shown in this movie, plus other stuff. The only thing it didn't have was how to fly the shuttle home - you have to be a pilot to be able to do that. When NASA sent an astronaut to talk to the Science teachers in my county at the beginning of the school year, I just about freaked out. Then when NASA said they were ready to try to send another teacher into space (RIP Christa), I jumped at the chance! I got all of my paperwork completed before the deadline and got all of my qualifications done, but they chose someone else. I just about cried. I still love this movie. ❤ I used to show it to my classes (with the PBS special Living and Working in Space) every year. The kids always had a lot of questions, and I answered every one of them. They were amazed that Space Camp was a real place, and that it was basically right next door (I live and taught in Georgia). I even found and downloaded a couple of videos about people who attended the camp. The kids loved those videos, too.

IMO, this is the best movie clip in cinema history!

I loved this movie when I was a kid! I haven't seen it in so long and haven't even thought about until I saw this in my recommendations. Such nostalgia!

Mom took me to see this on a weekday a week or so after opening. The theatre was almost empty; that blew my mind. Then the movie started! I was floored by what I was seeing and experiencing. What an experience. This is one of the many movies that sparked my curiosity and spirit. I love this flick. I love my Mom; thanks for taking me to a movie I never heard about before seeing it!

Most epic scene in movie history!

Amazing movie. Watched it over snd over again! Hits you right in the feels!

Reading these comments makes me so happy I am not the only one who thinks like you all. It has been an hysterical read! Me in the 80s when I was 11 years old, "I want to go to Space Camp so I can ride in the Space Shuttle!" Me now knowing everything I do about how the SLS works, "There is NO WAY this would EVER HAPPEN!"

I remember wanting this to happen to me. What a great time for kids movies. The 80s were amazing.

This brings chills and tears to me because, I was lucky to watch in person the launch and landing of the space shuttle

One of the best things about this scene is the John Williams score. It's soaring...

This seems extraordinarily irresponsible.

What a fantastic movie. Still like it as an adult. A regret is that I never did get to see a space shuttle launch

Such a beautiful film, I remember being inspired by it as a kid. Sadly I never made it to space camp, but I was able to become a pilot regardless.

I adore this movie! I watched it so many times when I was a kid!

Rest IN Peace Kelly Preston / Tish Ambrose

I watched this film last night with my nieces and nephew. We really dug it.

I always enjoyed this movie, the launching of the space shuttles and the Saturn 5 space rockets where always spectacular to watch.

As improbable as this is I loved this movie.

Hey, Max just got his academy award!!!!!

I remember seeing this movie a million times as a kid.

The sheer ridiculousness of an unprepped shuttle making orbit was overridden by the fun.

Marty McFly’s mother was smarter than she let on 😂

Cinema is where you suspend disbelief and enjoy the show! A great load of hokum but great fun!

This is still one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid

Wow! Talk about blast from the past. I loved this movie when I was a kid. It made me want to go to Space Camp so badly, though never got the chance. I even lived right next to the California location just outside the main gate at Moffet Field in Mountain View. I was a military brat living in the base housing.

Tom Skerritt: lets kids aboard the Shuttle and yet STILL gets a ticket to Vega ;-)

Checklist for a successful space launch: - Put on your motorcycle helmet - Get your Donald Duck voiced robot ready - Check your rocket booster-shaped column diagram for heat level - Tell your unexperienced buddies which buttons to press rather than reaching over and pressing them yourself - Rather than crapping your pants, goof around in zero gravity and go all Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

THANK YOU I remember as a kid how amazing space was and this movie brinks it all back. My day is now made

Was just at Kennedy Space Centre and walked under the Atlantis in its new "home" watching this gave me chills, and at the same time knowing now what we do now about the perils of shuttle launches...

OHMYNOSTALGIA. THIS WAS MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE MOVIE AS A KID. I'm dead serious; I watched this movie more than I watched The Lion King.

I actually went to space camp and got a seat in the Shuttle Atlantis....of course there would *never* be a "test run* of the ME's, let alone any poossibility of one of the SRB's igniting, it was still an awesome time.....the simulators left some jobs for the poor janitors as some, many could not handle the g's. This was 1992.

One of my favorite quasi disaster movies. My kids loved it growing up and, as an adult, I was right there with them. I have it on VHS and actually watch it from time to time.

8:30 "We're gonna die.... We're already dead...." Favorite line from the whole movie! Lol

I love the Soundtrack of that movie

One of my favourite movies with lea Thompson

Wow, I would say that traveling into space and traveling through time would be considered making your future a good one.

Man, I haven't seen this since I was a kid in the 80s. I think it's high time I revisit it. :-D