Capricorn One (the movie) questions (mundane and pointless)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m not putting this in GQ because I expect it to die a quick death and be rather mundane, so…
Here goes:

“Capricorn One” was just on Sci-Fi. I missed the beginning, and I can’t remember a few details.

  1. Why did they scrub the mission? They were going to Mars, right? I vaguely remember a scene with the crew in the ship, and being pulled out at the last minute during the countdown (right?). Was it planned that the mission would be scrapped or was the a real last-minute emergency?

  2. Where they planning on killing the crew anyway, or was the heat shield separation a convenient accident?

  3. Did they kill the other two crew members?

  4. Why did it end so abruptly, with James Brolin and Elliott Gould coming to the memorial service? I would have liked to see the aftermath of the coverup.

Mundane stuff I thought about while watching:
This movie starred Elliott Gould (former Mr. Barbra Streisand) and James Brolin (current Mr. Barbra Streisand).
It also starred Brenda Vaccaro, who played Joey’s mom on Friends and Elliott Gould, who plays Ross and Monica’s dad on Friends.
Am I really that pathetic for playing this “Connect The Stars” game whenever I watch movies?

2

If I remember correctly, a flaw was discovered in the environmental system that would not have kept to astronauts alive long enough for the Mars-and-back mission. It couldn’t have been a complete last-minute emergency, since they had enough warning to build a soundstage to fake the Mars surface, but the crew didn’t know about it until they were taken out of the capsule just before liftoff. Evil Administrator Hal Holbrook explained things to the crew members, but I don’t remember what he told them to get them to go along with it.

They were not planning to kill the crew. The plan was for the capsule to come down off-target so they could put the astronauts back in the capsule before the recovery teams arrived.

You are not pathetic for noticing odd connections. How else would we know that Barbra Streisand was in on this conspiracy from the very beginning?

3

Robot Arm pretty much covered it. As for #3, the astronauts are about to be taken to a rendezvous with the capsule. IIRC, they are already flying there aboard a Lear Jet and the pilots are abruptly told to return to base. The astronauts figure out that it would not be good to have “three dead astronauts” walking around and that they will be killed so that the coverup is not revealed. They escape from the building and get into the Lear. Too bad they’re out of fuel. (How were they going to fly to the capsule without fuel?) They make an emergency landing in the desert. To increase their chances of escaping, they each take a different direction. If one is caught, he will launch a flare to let the others know. James Brolin escapes with the help of an old cropduster.

#4. It was not necessary to show the aftermath because it can be assumed.