Was the murder of the astronauts not the first intention?

Sorry for my eng

i dunno the first, i've always thought that tey were killed on sight but i've read a lots of theores so i dunno but...
For the second question you forgot that they were taking the astronauts on the island so i don't think the shield stuff was already rigged...and then that evil guy looked really surprised so i don't think was already decided. Maybe as you said, if everything would have been ok they would have used the treathing to family to keep their mouths closed

Well, I think the first two were killed on sight. Nuke the site from orbit -- only way to be sure.

And I think the deaths were always part of the plan. At the outset, the plotters threatened to kill the three families -- or at least bluffed that they would -- either way, as soon as they did that, there was no going back. Imagine if they went through with their fakery, and brought the three astronauts back alive, and then one or more of the men decided to trade his career and reputation for the need to tell the truth? There would have been a massive public meltdown. The plotters simply couldn't take that chance, if only in the interests of self-preservation.

So they had to fake the landing and the nearly-getting-home, to make the program look like a near-success and justify further funding. But killing the three astronauts was the only way to guarantee that the word would never get out about the plot. (No doubt the few involved in the actual photography were quietly disappeared as well.) So I think the heat-shield failure was always planned; it was a credible way to contain the chance of exposure without bringing the mission into technical disrepute. The plotters' one big mistake (without which the movie wouldn't have had a Third Act, natch) was in not killing the astronauts immediately, once the heat-shield had "failed".

As for the fugitive astronauts, the safest, most reliable course of action was to kill each one separately, as soon as he was found. And presumably, hide them in the desert and leave predators to dispose of the remains. Take their suits, probably, and any identifying personal effects; maybe cut off their hands and heads. Far less risky than carting bodies with them, whether alive or dead, and completely deniable should anything go wrong.


tl;dr : Kill tham! Kill them all!!!



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

I'm pretty sure they were trying to kill the astronauts once they fled the hangar. The helicopters were shooting at Brolin once he got in the plane. Besides, what would be the point of capturing them and keeping them alive? Every second they're alive threatens to expose the conspiracy. They had to die.

I assumed the heat shield failure was a surprise to Hollbrook, he seemed genuinely shocked when it happened and the astronauts "died" upon re-entry. I think the plan legitimately was to put the astronauts in the pod once it landed and make sure they knew that if they ever talked they and their families would be killed.

I think it was always the intention to kill them (once they knew that the mission had to be faked) but kept them alive long enough.....to carry out the fake Mars landing.....making it look as if it *could* be achieved (which, in turn, kept the funding alive for future space explorations)
Faking something as big as this, would require 100% loyalty on all sides (something I don't think NASA had in it's astronauts)

I don't think the heat shield was planned either. Had they pulled off the original plan, the astronauts would have been a gold mine for future funding. Once the accident occurred they became a liability.

I think they killed the astronauts as they found them.

They were only the two helicopters and the guys piloting them available to do the dirty work, because they couldn't risk having more people in the know.

It's clear that they had to eliminate the astronauts to save the conspiracy, and they had to give it their best shot with the resources available.

Keeping the astronauts alive meant schlepping them around in the helicopters after they found them, which would slow down the helicopters with additional weight and would introduce the risk of having these passengers starting a struggle aboard. They would not be able to risk anything that would slow down finding the other astronauts.

As I said, they would have to give their best shot, and this means killing on sight.

As for the heat shield accident, I think it was an actual accident that caught them off guard. Maybe even caused by the course change for the charade.

The may have been taken to a high security prison and incarcerated in solitary confiment for life or just killed them but the heat shield if it was rigged the look surprised look on the flight director face showed he knew nothing about it being rigged and flying them to an island they wouldn't have brought them back just kill them on the island and put them i a mass grave end of story