Space Camp
The movie that made you want to go to space...or at least Cape Canaveral
When I’ve told people of this week’s film on the pod, the response has been almost universal—YES!!!!
Now maybe this is because I hang out with almost exclusively younger Gen X and Millennials, with the rare exception of the papyrologists I keep on hand for matters of dire importance. But for those of us who grew up in the 1980s, Space Camp has somehow found a way to remain close to our hearts.
If you haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is that a bunch of teenagers in what is actually a stacked cast including Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Tate Donovan, and a young Joaquin Phoenix attend Space Camp in the mid 80s and somehow end up in space where they learn Very Valuable Lessons about teamwork and believing in yourself. The trailer is below:
Despite what might seem an outrageous concept (note: most films are outrageous, otherwise we’d have movies about historians stuck in Colorado), this movie actually has a lot to say about where NASA was at the time. If you’ve been with us during the watch parties or some of the other podcasts, you’ll remember that NASA famously struggled to diversify itself in terms of race and gender from its very start. This film features two strong female leads in Lea Thompson and Kate Capshaw, as well as strong supporting perfomance by the late Kelly Preston. It seems to capture maybe the last bit of innocence about the Space Shuttle program, because while it was filmed in 1985, the film released on June 6, 1986, less than six months after the Challenger disaster. And it is nearly impossible to think about this film without thinking about that tragedy.
So in that case, movies like Space Camp are ideal for exploring ideas about science innovation, sex, race, and adolescence as seen through the lens of both the 1980s and 2024. And to do so I invited space historians Kevin Rusnak and Emily Carney to talk about all of the above. This is a really cool pod using this movie to talk about some really important themes in American history. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, don’t forget to like and subscribe. And with that, it’s time for Historians At The Movies Podcast to, uh, launch another episode.
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Jason