Frank Corvin, "Hawk" Hawkins, Jerry O'Neill and Tank Sullivan were hotdog members of Project
DAEDALUS, the Air Force's test program for space travel. Their hopes were dashed in 1958 with
the formation of NASA and the use of trained chimps. They blackmail their way into orbit when
Russia's mysterious Ikon communications satellite's orbit begins to degrade and threatens to
crash into Earth.
Clint Eastwood
Tommy Lee Jones
Donald Sutherland
James Garner
Marcia Gay Harden
... Dr. Frank Corvin
... Col. William 'Hawk' Hawkins
... Jerry O'Neill
... Tank Sullivan
... Sara Holland
Trivia Facts
The night scenes where Tommy Lee Jones and Marcia Gay Harden are alone together was filmed in
the University of Houston - Downtown campus satellite parking lot; permission from the
university was needed to film the night scenes. Clint Eastwood met with UHD president Dr.
Maximillian Castillo in person in late 1998 before filming began.
In the film, the four astronauts appear together on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" (1992). To
promote the film, they all appeared together on the same show.
Clint Eastwood wrote the theme that plays at the beginning of the movie and it was worked into
the score by Lennie Niehaus.
The modeling department put a Space Mr. Coffee in the cargo bay of the shuttle.
Originally Sean Connery was supposed to play Jerry O"Neil and Jack Nicholson was supposed to
play Tank Sullivan.
