He says that mission control in Houston knows nothing of this staging because they are receiving information from the real command module in space, as well as the astronauts' voice and medical data recorded during the practice simulations. To reveal the only available solution, Kelloway takes the three astronauts into the warehouse where a set has been built of a space capsule on the Mars surface. However, aborting the mission would destroy NASA's reputation and funding, considering the skepticism for space exploration within the current administration, as well as the waning interest among the public. James Kelloway, explains to the astronauts that the life-support system, supplied by a greedy contractor, was recently discovered to be faulty, and it would have only kept them alive for three weeks. Meanwhile, the spacecraft is launched, and the control room in Houston, Texas is not aware that it is unmanned. From the launch site, they are flown on a NASA Learjet to an abandoned military base in the desert. As the Command pilot Charles Brubaker and his fellow astronauts, Peter Willis and John Walker, are performing final checks inside the capsule, an official opens the hatch and demands that they leave the craft immediately due to an emergency. At Cape Canaveral, Florida on the morning of 4 Jan, NASA readies the spacecraft Capricorn One, the first manned mission to Mars, for launch.

Capricorn one the movie