Factual drama exploring the truth behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 disintegration.Factual drama exploring the truth behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 disintegration.Factual drama exploring the truth behind the space shuttle Challenger's 1986 disintegration.
- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations
- Michelle Feynman
- (as Megan Young)
- Judson Lovingood
- (as Sean C. Michael)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWhen Feynman is talking to Bill Graham from his home office, you can see a California vanity plate that partially spells out "TOUVA" on a shelf. Feynman and his friend Ralph Leighton, who transcribed his adventures into the books "Surely You're Joking" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" had been on a quest to visit the remote Asian country of Tuva, a country all but inaccessible to Westerners in the late 1980s. Leighton obtained the plate for his car. Sadly, their last, best scheme to reach Tuva fell into place two weeks after Feynman died of stomach cancer.
- GoofsWhen Feynman visits the Shuttle factory, the flight deck interior is clearly that of a Boeing 747-200. You can see the flight engineer's panel and the four throttles on the centre console, also the windscreen layout gives it away.
- Quotes
Rogers: The other commissioners are just being respectful.
Richard Feynman: And you're saying I'm not? You understand the implications of the oxygen being activated? I do. The astronauts had to do that themselves. Which means they were ALIVE for at least some of those two minutes and thirty six seconds before they slammed into the ocean. Mr Rogers I'm an atheist, I personally doubt they're touching the face of God so I prefer to show my respect by finding the CAUSE of their appalling deaths and not stand around looking sad.
- ConnectionsFollows Challenger (1990)
Three agencies were involved in deciding to launch that freezing morning -- NASA, Raytheon, and Morton-Thiokol. This isn't made clear in the film, because the film is about Richard Feynman. But a New Yorker feature article years ago described what the agencies did about their doubts. Calls were made back and forth between the experts at each agency, each anxious to "check its six o'clock", and the question being asked gradually underwent evolution -- from "Should we launch?" to "Why SHOULDN'T we launch?" The results were disastrous.
A committee was formed to investigate the causes of the failure, with Feynman being the only independent members, all the others tied up with the military or with political considerations. But this isn't one of those dumb and oversimplified stories in which there is some sort of military/industrial conspiracy against the whistleblower. It belongs to the genre but is a pretty good example of it. So was the more commercially oriented "The Pentagon Wars." An example of a dumbed-down rendition is "The Insider," which really has little to say and shamelessly invents incidents to hype the drama.
William Hurt captures Feynman's personality with accuracy. Not his speech or his gestures. It's not an impression. But he has a grasp on Feyman's inner character -- devoted to science and outspoken. Feynman was actually quite a guy and might be described as abrasive. He didn't hesitate to demolish the ideas of others, whether they were equals or subordinates. He didn't do it viciously. He simply pointed out how stupid the notions were and then went on about his business.
The climactic scene is unforgettable. All the engineers (who generally hate physicists for having their heads in the clouds) are testifying before the committee and throwing up a blizzard of jargon about "ambient temperatures" and "Kelvin coefficients" and directions to "the Wheatstone Bridge" and other unfathomable cant in order to keep the water so murky that no one can detect their own part in the catastrophe. I won't give away the climax except to say that Feynman pulls a "Bill Nye, The Science Guy" stunt that shuts all the connivers up and embarrasses the experts.
The BBC put this out. I suppose they could afford to be a little less careful with American political sensibilities. William Hurt and his scowl of amazement is about perfect. Feynman's illness isn't dwelt on for sympathetic effect but it was real enough; he died a short time later.
- rmax304823
- Nov 17, 2013
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- 73 Seconds: The Challenger Investigation
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