Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!ogccse!orstcs!jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU!carpenc
From: carpenc@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Cory Carpenter)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: An idea
Message-ID: <13056@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 12 Oct 89 05:32:16 GMT
References: <3743@rtech.rtech.com> <1401.251BA8CC@branch.FIDONET.ORG> <1989Sep26.220340.13871@ziebmef.mef.org> <1989Sep27.110807.2646@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <212@v7fs1.UUCP> <1989Sep29.164653.29049@utzoo.uucp> <1511@hiatus.dec.com> <33321@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
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Reply-To: carpenc@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU.UUCP (Cory Carpenter)
Organization: Oregon State University - CS - Corvallis Oregon
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In article <33321@ames.arc.nasa.gov> mike@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mike Smithwick) writes:
>While we're on the subject, anyone see the kids film "Stowaway to the
>Moon?". In it a 10 year old boy stows away in an Apollo and ends up
>saving the mission. The CMP came down with the flu in lunar orbit while
>the LM in on the surface. The kid had to help him during the docking
>and saved his life when he vomited in his helmet which he was wearing to
>get extra oxygen to help his sickness.
>
>For being a children's film it was very well done, much better 
>than many so-called "serious" movies.
>
>They used authentic mockups, not merely control panels decorated with
>christmas-tree lights like many a sci-fi film. They had a half-way
>plausible scenerio as to how he was able to get on board and hide 
>(An old man he knew used to own part of the cape area. When the government
>bought it from him, he was given special access to portions of his old 
>property  for fishing. The kid disguised himself as the old man, borrowed
>his boat, so security let him by. He then donned a hard had, took a 
>tool-box and made up a phoney picture badge that would just look good
>enough on the black-and-white security cameras on the pad.)
>
>
>
>                                                      *** mike smithwick ***

Mike--

Nope. I don't recall that movie.  However, I do remember reading a book
(a substantial number of years ago) that was very likely the basis for the 
film.  It's been so long that I can't even recall the title, but the plot
matches up pretty well with your summary from the movie... with a few 
exceptions ;-)

(I seem to recall quite a bit of plot-building in the book, such as the kid
and a couple of his friends building a life-size mockup of an Apollo command
module; the old man carving a grip for their OME stick and teaching them how
to catch stingrays and stamp out little circles of 'ray meat to sell to
restaurants as "scallops.")

The thing I remember best from the book is the old man explaining to the kids
why he called the outboard motor on his boat a "kicker" -- you had to kick 
it a couple of times before starting it "once to mix the fuel, and once to
show it who's boss."

--CRC

Coryc Carpenter
Sequent Computer Systems
{ogccse,tektronix}!sequent!coryc
orstcs!jacobs!carpenc
"I may know what I'm saying, but my employer doesn't!"