Steve> Thanks! Feel free to pair them down as you wish (or add). Best thing I can think of doing.
In that vein, we should start a list of best test pilot / real space movies. Feel free to suggest, and I'll put them into the first post.
The Right Stuff (of course) - The Right Stuff is a 1983 American epic historical drama film. It was adapted from Tom Wolfe's best-selling 1979 book of the same name about the Navy, Marine and Air Force test pilots who were involved in aeronautical research at Edwards Air Force Base, California, as well as the Mercury Seven, the seven military pilots who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first manned spaceflight by the United States.
October Sky - October Sky is a 1999 American biographical drama film directed by Joe Johnston, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Chris Owen, and Laura Dern. It is based on the true story of Homer H. Hickam, Jr., a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 to take up rocketry against his father's wishes and eventually became a NASA engineer. "October Sky" is based on the lives of four young men who grew up in Coalwood, West Virginia.
I Aim At the Stars - 1960 The life story of the famed rocket scientist Dr. Werner von Braun, one of the most brilliant and controversial figures of the space age. Dr. von Braun helped pioneer man's adventure into space through his rocket experiments; his was the brain behind the V-2 rockets which blasted London in World War II; his was also the brain which led America into the development and the launching of space satellites.
Toward the Unknown - 1956 USAF Major Lincoln Bond is captured, tortured and released from a POW camp in Korea. After the war he returns to the US where he is re-assigned as a test pilot at the Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base. The Air Force is testing the new experimental aircraft Gilbert XF-120 fighter. The acceptance of the new aircraft by the Air Force is dependent on successful tests designed to prove the aircraft's reliability and safety. However, when Major Bond flies the prototype he encounters a problem that points out a dangerous structural flaw. This could threaten the aircraft's acceptance by the Air Force and derail the whole project. Major Bond's commanding officer and some of his colleagues start to suspect that Major Bond is imagining things because of his mental condition dating back to his imprisonment and torture in the Korean POW camp. (NOTE: Watch when Holden walks into the officer's club and looks at the hand prints on the wall of the pilots who have been there.)
Gary