Due to a shuttle's unfortunate demise in outer space, NASA becomes aware of a doomsday asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. It seems that the only way to knock it off course is to drill into its surface and detonate a nuclear weapon. But as NASA's under-funded yet resourceful team train the world's best drillers for the job, the social order of the world begins to break down as the information reaches the public and hysteria results. As high-ranking officials play politics with the effort, the drilling team all faces deep personal issues which may jeopardize humanity's last chance...

Because of the patriotic nature of the script and the success of using Top Gun (1986) as recruitment material, the producers persuaded NASA to allow director Michael Bay and company to shoot in the normally restricted space agency. This included the neutral buoyancy lab, a 65-million-gallon, 40-foot-deep pool used to train astronauts for weightlessness and the use of two $10-million space suits. The crew was also allowed to shoot in the historic launch pad that went out of service after the Apollo 1 disaster, and parts of the movie were filmed at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Chick:
I never told anybody this before, but I hate flyin'. So it would be an awful shame to die now.


Rockhound:
That's easy for you to say. I owe 100 grand to a fat-ass loan shark which I spent on a stripper named Molly Mounds.


Chick:
Boy, that's bad.

Factual errors: There are numerous errors in Shuttle procedure and in the depiction of space flight. See trivia.

Written by Diane Warren
Performed by Aerosmith
Courtesy of Columbia Records