On its 40th anniversary, we reassess 1986's SpaceCamp

eric and lee, friends forever On its 40th anniversary, we reassess 1986’s SpaceCamp Is it a hidden gem, a cult classic, or hopelessly dumb? We vote “all of the above.” Eric Berger & Lee Hutchinson – May 31, 2026 7:15 am | 58 Preparing to go where no teenager has gone before. Credit: 20th Century Fox Preparing to go where no teenager has gone before. Credit: 20th Century Fox Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only    Learn more Minimize to nav Forty years ago, the future seemed just around the corner—and the vehicle that was going to take us there was NASA’s Space Shuttle. Originally envisioned as part of a larger integrated space transportation system , the shuttle was billed as a fully reusable vehicle, totally unlike the one-and-done capsules of the fading Apollo era, capable of making monthly (and perhaps even weekly) ferry flights to low Earth orbit. The shuttle, it was hoped, would transform human space flight from extraordinary to mundane. Brands like Coke and Pepsi were quick to hop aboard and expand the Cola Wars into space , and there were even plans to blast Sesame Street’s Big Bird into orbit . The loss of Challenger in January 1986—carrying educator Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first private citizen in space—put the kibosh on all of that. The shuttle, while fantastically advanced, would never be the vehicle to help humankind slip all of our surly bonds, so to speak. Even operating at its most frantic peak in 1985 just before Challenger’s loss, the shuttle hardware managed a maximum of nine flights in one calendar year; for most of the 1990s, it performed at five or six flights per year. Civilians in space—to say nothing of Big Bird—would have to wait. And into that post- Challenger disillusioned summer of 1986, Hollywood brought us SpaceCamp . It had all the right ingredients: A stacked cast with a solid leading duo (Kate Capshaw and Tom Sk