The problem with this whole issue of credibility/scientific accuracy, which bothered me a lot despite the fun aspects of this movie, can be simplified by saying that there is not enough of it !
Let me explain myself. I read many times that "Space Cowboys" was a comedy. Well, I'd personally opt rather for the term satire here, but the point is that there are many aspects in this movie that cannot be treated realistically or scientifically or else, the movie would miss its point at depicting how a bunch of daredevil geezers manage to live the last great mission/adventure of their lives at the expense of a prejudiced technocratic establishment. And there are all the side stories, the little bits of humor with the various characters, especially James Garner the crazy pastor and Donald Sutherland the sex-driven engineer... Much of the plot is arch-simplified and simplistic, but stays within the realm of what works as a comedy. And to be funny, a story cannot be told at the first degree from A to Z. There must be elements of fantasy, lots of them, to make us forget about the scientifically improbable, especially when dealing with that particular subject matter...
Back to the inaccuracies of the script, I think the movie tries to include too many scientific and technical details to give a varnish of credibility to the film. What is missing, really, is a more complete commitment to comedy, which would have made the flight to the moon, the sounds of metal in total vacuum, and the problems with numbers (altitude, times, distances, etc.) rather trivial and in fact, totally unimportant. The movie is NOT a well-documented semi-fictional satire with a scientifically realistic and sound plot, such as "The Right Stuff" (which it resembles superficially). It does not play at that level.
The author(s) of the script could have spent less time researching the technical aspects of the plot so that they would have been less tempted by the exhibition of knowledge (always the same trap!), and more by the inner workings, the mechanics of comedy.
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