FILM · 2000 · USA
Space Cowboys
35 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (35)
- #001
The shoot was physically hard on the actors: James Garner dislocated his shoulder and Donald Sutherland tore a knee ligament.
- #002
As the Daedalus Orbiter approaches Kennedy Space Center it produces a double sonic boom, because the Orbiter generates two shock waves — a bow wave and a tail wave — heard as separate booms.
- #003
Clint Eastwood was initially set to star in and produce the film rather than direct it. After potential directors decided that filming space travel would be too difficult, he chose to direct it himself.
- #004
The Mission Control set was built using real Mission Control plans supplied by NASA.
- #005
According to Adam Savage, the special effects team tested various materials to imitate the look of gold foil on camera and found that the gold-colored wrappers of Rolo candies gave the best result.
- #006
NASA offered "vomit comet" aircraft capable of creating weightlessness for the shoot (they had previously been used for the weightless scenes in Apollo 13 (1995)). Clint Eastwood turned the offer down for fear that the older actors would become too sick to film.
- #007
The original script called for the IKON orbital weapons platform to be a highly classified NASA project. NASA refused to cooperate with the production unless the script was changed so that it did not depict NASA, since the agency had nothing to do with placing weapons in orbit.
- #008
Real astronauts who attended the film's first screening were impressed by how realistic space looked.
- #009
The scenes in space were entirely computer-generated, with the actors' faces added digitally.
- #010
The "Asshole Centering Module" is a closed-circuit video system used during ground-based Shuttle astronaut training. It displays an image of the astronaut's rear so that he can position himself correctly while using the Waste Collection System.
- #011
Clint Eastwood called this film "Geezer Power."
- #012
Global Effects Inc. designed ten space suits for the film using the same woven Teflon as the real garments. The company also created space suits for Armageddon (1998), Deep Impact (1998) and the MTV Moonman.
- #013
The interview with Jay Leno was filmed in front of a real Tonight Show audience. Leno told monologue jokes about Viagra, Matlock (1986) and prostate problems, and improvised with the actors as he would in a real interview.
- #014
Clint Eastwood wrote the theme heard at the start of the film, and the music was arranged by Lennie Niehaus.
- #015
In this film the four astronauts appeared together on The Tonight Show (1992) with Jay Leno. They all appeared on the same program together to promote the film.
- #016
The Bell X-2 was the first aircraft to reach an altitude of one hundred thousand feet and to exceed Mach 3.
- #017
The Halfway House Café was also used in another Clint Eastwood film, Heartbreak Ridge (1986).
- #018
According to editor Joel Cox, Clint Eastwood, known as a fast director, routinely shot thirty-five to forty setups in a single day.
- #019
To create the effect of weightlessness, the actors held on to objects as if they were anchoring themselves. Clint Eastwood chose not to use the "Vomit Comet," the aircraft used to film weightlessness in Apollo 13 (1995).
- #020
"Hawk" Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones) is introduced feet-first as the camera moves around the corner of a building, shown seated in a reclining position. The film ends with an almost identical arrangement, as the camera turns past the corner of the wreckage on the Moon and he is once again positioned toward Earth, stretched out with his feet first and then his body facing upward.
- #021
This was Jon Hamm's (Young Pilot #2) first feature film.
- #022
The Modeling Department placed a Space Mr. Coffee in the shuttle's cargo bay. It was the idea of chief model maker Adam Savage, a former co-host of MythBusters (2003) on the Discovery Channel.
- #023
On the real space shuttle, four people sat in front and two in back, but Eastwood wanted everyone together.
- #024
Clint Eastwood's team initially thought they would need forty special effects shots. They ended up with about three hundred.
- #025
The simulator is the same one real astronauts use to train for their missions.
- #026
Loren Dean also appeared in Apollo 13 (1995). In both films he worked for NASA and was a key member of the mission. In Apollo 13, Dean played NASA engineer John Aaron, who was largely known for saving the Apollo 12 mission and played an important role in the rescue of the Apollo 13 crew. Ironically, in Space Cowboys Dean's astronaut character Ethan Glance is arrogant and stubborn, ignoring engineering data for the sake of orders, nearly causing the mission to fail and contributing to the circumstances that lead Hawkins to sacrifice himself to prevent a nuclear disaster.
- #027
Clint Eastwood used real footage of a space shuttle landing for the film's landing scenes.
- #028
Writer Howard Klausner had actually finished the script and was shopping it around Hollywood long before astronaut John Glenn's return to space was announced.
- #029
John Asher, who plays young Jerry, is first seen in the film looking at a Playboy magazine. At the time, Asher was married in real life to 1994 Playmate of the Year Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg.
- #030
Sir Sean Connery was originally set to play Jerry O'Neill, and Jack Nicholson was to play "Tank" Sullivan.
- #031
At one point Bob Gerson tells Frank Corvin that Frank became a senior citizen five years ago, and Corvin corrects him that it was four years ago. In real life, Clint Eastwood had turned 65, the official senior citizen age in the United States, five years before this film was released.
- #032
For the space scenes shot in front of a black canopy, a 1/22-scale miniature model of IKON was used.
- #033
The night scenes in which "Hawk" Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and Sara Holland (Marcia Gay Harden) are alone together were shot in the satellite parking lot of the University of Houston–Downtown campus. Permission had to be obtained from the university to film the night scenes. Clint Eastwood met personally with UHD President Dr. Maximillian Castillo in late 1998 before filming began.
- #034
The cast includes three Oscar winners: Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones and Marcia Gay Harden; and two Oscar nominees: James Garner and James Cromwell.
- #035
Clint Eastwood appeared as a guest star alongside James Garner in an episode of Maverick (1957).
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