


In conspiracy thriller terms, this does represent something of a deviation from the norm. The astronauts initially refuse to participate, but when Kelloway assures them that their families will pay the ultimate price for their non-cooperation, they reluctantly agree. They have thus decided to launch the rocket anyway and fake the entire mission by transporting the astronauts to an abandoned Air Corps base, from where they intend to produce false transmissions from mock-ups of the capsule and the surface of Mars. But the space programme has fallen on difficult times and they need the mission to be a success in order to secure future funding. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) explains that they have discovered that the life support system supplied by an outside contractor is faulty and that if the launch went ahead all three astronauts would be dead within three weeks. Simpson) – are on the launch pad readying for take-off when the hatch of the capsule is opened and they are hurriedly bundled out. The three astronauts of the first manned mission to Mars – Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Lieutenant Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston) and Commander John Walker (O.J. If you're new to the film then some clarification is probably in order. I was thus not in the least surprised to learn that she is not only a big fan of the 1977 thriller Capricorn One, but to this day regards it as something of a factual record. Then again, she probably has her suspicions about lasers as well, or at least those who own or operate them. * She remains stubbornly deaf to any talk of the retroreflectors placed there by the Apollo astronauts that anyone with a powerful enough laser can use to measure the precise distance between the Earth and the Moon. She's also never believed that anyone ever landed on the Moon and that the whole thing was faked in a film studio. She is utterly convinced, for example, that Diana Spencer was murdered on the orders of the Queen, and completely stonewalls any attempt at debate on the subject. It's not a subject she's made a study of she just believes that certain events are the result of sinister machinations. I have a close friend who is a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Stuart Atkinson – New Mars, 7th March 2003
