the ending

That's suffocating, then. I agree, it's a horrible way to go.

Actually, it takes 3-4 days to get to the moon from Earth orbit. His oxygen supply would not have lasted that long especially since he had already been out on the EVA for quite a while at the time. And when the booster he was on crashed onto the surface of the moon the impact would have either thrown him clear of the impact site or crushed his body.

IIRC it took Apollo 3 to 4 days to get to the Moon. Hawk (TLJ character) launched in Earth orbit and had 6 rockets. Clearly he could accelerate at a fast rate. I doubt it would have killed him ... since he's a tough old bird. They also indicated that Hawk was able to launch the rockets into space. He would have done this at the half way point so his acceleration would have stopped at that point.

He also requested and presumably received all the "CO2" 'motors' they had. I could also imagine another rocket on the orbiting platform to slow his decent to the move - so he could land and not die to do sudden deceleration.

I would imagine that he had extra O2 to make sure he could make it far enough. He waited fourty years for this, I doubt he would EF it up. Also take into consideration he landed the Shuttle without computer control (in the simulator) and his teammate, Frank (Clint), also landed the Shuttle without computer control.


The end of the movie clearly shows the wreckage of his craft and shows his body sitting down, leading on a rock looking at Earth. They also played fly me to the Moon... which was used earlier in the movie.

Clearly this movie was not "realistic" in many ways, but then it would have been a 12 hour mini series .. and or course might have a few inconsistencies. It was realistic in all the ways that matter... not that it matters much to those who are inert.

Either way, in his situation, that was a very good way to die.

Not replying to any single person, but here's the poop:

1. Hawk says "I need all the spare O2 we've got." That's supposedly how he made it to the moon alive.

2. After the launch, the Mission director says, "Ikon has left our gravitational pull; Hawk was able to launch the warheads into outer space." Technically, they were also supposed to detonate as well (mentioned earlier), thus avoiding the nasty potential there.

3. Hawk, defying all logic, manages to land softly on the moon and position himself in an Earth-viewing posture. Given the broken O2 containers in the pan shot before reaching Hawk, one can assume that Hawk didn't live as long as he'd hoped he would.

Yes, there are a crapload of assumptions we must make, such as all the rockets firing in perfect unison, and that launching from orbit (instead of on the ground) somehow made it easier to achieve breakaway velocity, and thus allowed Hawk to head to the moon much faster than Apollo could.

Finally, since a relatively small amount of damage doomed Columbia in real life, it's much harder to suspend disbelief regarding all the harsh impact onto Daedalus from Ikon.