So-so children’s live-action movie about a bunch of kids sent to NASA’s Space Camp and are being given a tour aboard a fully-fueled space shuttle on the launchpad(!) when it’s accidentally launched into space. Virtually no special effects other than kids floating around, I think they even used stock footage for the launch, unlike the award-winning multi-shuttle launches in the James Bond 007 movie “Moonraker.” Kate Capshaw, Lea Thompson, Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Skerritt. Leonard Maltin dubbed it Brats In Space. And after the explosion of real space shuttle Challenger on January 28, killing all seven astronauts, people weren’t in the mood to see a light comedy/drama about a space shuttle accident.

Fun fact:
In 1801, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi used Bode’s Law and his own calculations to find the largest chunk in the asteroid belt (asteroid means “starlike”) and named it Ceres. Johann Bode had worked out a mathematical series which showed where every planet’s orbital distance from the Sun should be, and where he predicted a planet would be. Since the series showed a planet should be somehwere between Mars and Jupiter, astronomers were not surprised about the discovery of Ceres, but they were surprised at its small size; less than 500 miles across, and the discovery of many more asteroids, leading to speculation that a planet had been there until it exploded or was smashed into by something else. Whatever caused a planet to be broken apart into asteroids one thing is obvious: it’s Bush’s fault.