Continuity mistake: The US flag that was in the back-left corner of Gerson's office (between the map and the window) when Colonel Corvin first visits to offer Team Daedelus' service is gone later on, when General Vostov is in Gerson's office. (00:34:25)
Revealing mistake: While the guys are going for their physicals, there's a scene in which blood is drawn and you can clearly see the tube connected to the end of the syringe pumping fake blood into the container.
Factual error: The shuttle re-entry being nose-down could never happen. You had to hit the atmosphere nose-up so the ceramic tiles took the heat.
Suggested correction: Not totally true, the nose and leading edge wing were RCC and could take 2300°F, just like the tiles on the underside.
Visible crew/equipment: You can see reflections of film crew and lighting boards in Clint Eastwood's sunglasses several times during the scenes where he is gathering the old members of team Daedalus.
Factual error: At the end, the Russian satellite is aimed straight at the moon. It couldn't have been done that way, and if they did aim at the moon, they would have had to aim to where it would be in 3 days.
Continuity mistake: During the climactic landing sequence at the end, the point of view shifts rapidly from head-on to alongside and back. Watch carefully at the first side-on view just as they're touching down; the nose of the shuttle says "Columbia". When it switches to the next head-on view, the wings say "Daedalus".
Factual error: A couple of times during the film, someone exclaims in horror that if this-or-that system fails, they will have to land the shuttle dead-stick (unpowered; no chance to veer off and try again). Actually, all shuttle landings are dead-stick; they are computer guided but nevertheless are unpowered, one-shot deals.
Factual error: The X-2 only had one seat. In fact, I don't believe there were any two-seater "x-planes".
Factual error: In many scenes in space, the stars are shown twinkling or flickering. This occurs only when seen through an atmosphere.
Suggested correction: Stars also twinkle or flicker due to intervening interstellar gas clouds, so this is no error.
Continuity mistake: When Frank is stopped in the lobby after leaving Gerson's office if you look out the window behind Frank you see a couple walk by, a woman in a light suit and a man next to her. The shot than shifts to Gerson and back to Frank, you again see the couple walking by, within 30 seconds.
Factual error: In the shuttle landing sims, the pilot is flying, not the commander.
Continuity mistake: When the rockets blasted on the Russian satellite, it should have cleared all the debris surrounding it.
Factual error: At one point, the rotating solar power panels on IKON slam into the Shuttle, wrapping around the nose. That's bad for the astronauts! The tiles all over the Shuttle are used to absorb the tremendous heat of reentry. They are also very brittle. An impact like that would have torn them off by the hundreds, making reentry impossible.
Suggested correction: The nose was Reinforced Carbon Carbon, or RCC, like the leading edge wing. The tiles were further back.
Factual error: Before launch, Flight reads off the names of positions and then "go". During a shuttle launch, Flight reads off the names and the controller checks in with a go/no go.
Factual error: When they first go EVA to look at the satellite, Eastwood goes into the Shuttle cargo bay to put on his Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). He goes outside without being tethered at any point. Even when deploying an astronaut in a MMU, the astronaut remained tethered until he was safely mounted into the MMU, then the tether was removed. Upon his return, the astronaut was again tethered before he dismounted the MMU.
Continuity mistake: In the first fifteen minuets of the film, Marcia Gay Harding's ear rings keep vanishing and reappearing.
Factual error: In the opening scene the x-plane approaches at a very high speed and abruptly makes a very sharp turn to climb straight up. Even with pressure suits this high-speed maneuver would not only kill the pilots but snap the wings off the plane as well. X-planes were carried up to high altitudes before their engines were ever lit up. Flying an x-plane at ground level just was not done.
Continuity mistake: The character Jerry, played by Donald Sutherland, snaps off one arm of his sunglasses that the doctor gave him. He uses it to assist him in fixing the door that was jammed shut. When they are suited up and coming back to Earth it shows him with the sunglasses back on from both sides of his head and the arm is on the glasses, not broken off anymore.
Other mistake: During the landing, when Jerry is getting Ethan and Roger out of the shuttle using the escape pole, the two people going out (presumably the stuntmen) look to in fact be jumping out the hatch, instead of just being pushed/thrown by Jerry.
Factual error: The superfortress has a near miss with one of the pilots who has not opened his parachute yet and is therefore still in free fall. As seen from the ground the superfortress would be just a dot in the sky, and the pilot would not yet be visible to the naked eye. Jerry says he saw it happen and he is not even using binoculars - no-one has eyesight that good.
