Original subtitles

(theme song plays)

(alarm buzzing)

(buzzing continues)

(buzzing stops)

(sighs)

(sighs)

Firs... (clearing throat)

First call! Everybody hit the deck!

(thudding)

(thudding)

(thudding)

(blowing air, single note plays)

(playing reveille lethargically)

"shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote..."

(reveille continues playing)

(burbles)

(reveille continues playing)

"Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes..."

(playing lethargically)

(playing slows)

(burbling)

COMMENTATOR (on TV): You are witnessing the final stages of the countdown

in an attempt to place a new satellite into orbit

around the Earth.

The time is zero minus 26 minutes.

That's right. 26 minutes.

BUB: Hey, up there!

26 minutes to eat and run.

(siren wailing on TV)

MAN: Attention, please.

All personnel on the launchpad

will please clear the test area.

And all personnel in the living room

will please get dressed for breakfast.

We're late. (turns off TV)

Please, Bub, they're launching a satellite.

26 minutes, he said.

And you gotta be out of the house. Come on.

Well, at least leave it on so I can hear it.

Oh, well, as long as you keep moving.

Come on, now, we're having oatmeal.

Instant oatmeal, so it won't keep you waiting.

Now get upstairs and do what I say.

It's only a few minutes. Be lively, get up there.

Anybody alive topsides?

STEVE (yawning): Yeah. We're conscious.

COMMENTATOR: The boot has been sewed up completely around the booster.

The service tower is in the process of being moved

to the transfer table.

MAN: Move it over this way, Jackson.

MAN 2: Which way? To the right.

Hey, wake up!

(screams)

COMMENTATOR: The time is zero minus 24 minutes.

24 minutes, and I still haven't done my English theme yet.

And I still haven't found anything interesting

to talk about in school.

It has to be about a dramatic incident

and nothing dramatic ever happens to me.

Timing is the key to the proper organization

of the vast complex of components

in any guidance system.

Snap it up, fellows.

You're all riding with me this morning.

These men have trained for years to operate as a team,

for in no other area of endeavor is teamwork so essential.

I gotta shave. Where's your trash?

Not only must each man carry out his own task,

but he must perform it in relation to the entire complex.

Only in this way can miscalculations

be spotted early enough to prevent disaster.

MIKE: Ow! My toe.

Ow!

Zero minus 23 minutes.

This room is the nerve center (pounding on door)

where final adjustments are made.

Here the requirements of space and time are precise.

Chip, if you'd brush your teeth in the bathtub

maybe I can shave.

MAN: Testing. One, two,

three, four. Mike, let him in.

COMMENTATOR: The rocket is in bat 13,

one of the three launch complexes.

All rocket systems have been checked out

and the engines have been test fired.

Strip the beds! This is Monday!

MAN: We'll be ready for lube test at minus 18.

Strip the beds! Do you hear me?

MAN 2: Roger.

Service tower secure.

Crew going in by way of truck.

Roger?

We would like to confirm our regulator

before going past this point.

Roger.

How about the sheets?!

This is Monday!

Roger.

Sheets and pillowcases to the wash!

I'll collect them.

Every day the same old routine.

Nothing dramatic to write about.

Hey, cut it out.

Watch were you're stooping.

I'm not stooping.

COMMENTATOR: Modern technology compels men to operate in harmony

in situations where space and time are limited.

Thousands of components, assemblies and subsystems

become a single unit at the moment of blastoff.

Okay.

Hey, be careful.

Zero minus 21.

The payload is in position,

ready for launching into a carefully pre-calculated orbit.

(metallic clanging)

Sheets please.

MAN: Test conductor to range safety.

MAN 2: Go ahead.

MAN: We have satisfactorily completed the range safety test.

Sheets please.

Haven't you even started to dress?

Come on, Robbie, you're lagging.

Okay. Out for now.

COMMENTATOR: The rocket stands ready,

a thing compounded out of the gadgetry of the ballistic age.

A giant whose vital organs have been given a thorough physical.

Yet for all it is still only a machine,

a machine not fully predictable

until every one of its mechanical patterns of behavior

are well understood and proven reliable.

Zero minus 20!

MAN: Frank, how's this local shower now?

MAN 2: Report from weather says

they don't expect much lightning in the area.

High winds aloft.

Let's have the wash up there!

MAN: Roger. Go ahead.

The, uh, rainstorm's moving south,

we expect it to be over in about five or ten minutes.

You hit the basket, I'll give you two points.

Then on further check,

reporting that barometric readings show pressures

slowly rising along the entire range.

MAN 2: Roger.

Stand by.

Come on, shake a leg, fellas.

I got an office conference at 9:00.

Hurry it up, Chip. "The droghte..."

Mike, don't forget your wastebaskets.

COMMENTATOR: The time is zero minus 18 minutes.

"Whan that Aprill, with hise shoures soote

Perced to the roote."

Robbie, don't you have band practice today?

Where's your horn? Oh, yeah.

I'm playing a solo this afternoon.

Chip, did you comb your hair? Yeah.

Boy, you sure need a haircut.

And the second hand sweeps on as hundreds of men,

their nerves taut after months of painstaking work,

weary from lack of sleep,

their senses keyed to fever pitch,

prepare for their rendezvous with destiny.

Minus 17 minutes 30 seconds... 29...

28... Come on, Chip, breakfast.

27... Robbie.

26...

"The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne..."

"And bathed every veyne in swich licour

Of which vertu engendred is the flour."

You know Chaucer?

Well, how could I help it?

That's all I've been listening to for a week.

I gotta have 18 lines memorized by 9:00.

Uh-huh. And who talks like Chaucer anymore?

"The droghte and March..."

and-and "swich licour."

This parabolic tracking antenna is equipped

with the solid-state maser, a synthetic ruby component

chilled in liquid helium and capable of

microwave amplification

by stimulated emission of radiation.

Well, at least Chaucer spoke English.

We better eat now.

You can burn that trash later.

Zero minus 16 minutes.

And the clock moves on.

Fueling operations continue as liquid oxygen is pumped into

the fuel storage components of the rocket engines. (kettle whistling)

"Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth..."

Zero minus 15.

That reminds me,

I'm gonna flunk English today.

And I haven't got anything interesting

to take to school.

Why are you gonna flunk English?

I'm supposed to write a theme

about the most dramatic incident of my life.

And nothing dramatic ever happened to me.

And I'm supposed to bring

something interesting to school,

so the teacher can talk about it.

Why is it when you have a whole weekend

to do your homework you put it off till Monday morning?

If I did that I wouldn't have any drawing to show

at the conference this morning.

I worked on it all day yesterday.

Well, I worked, too.

That's why my wastebasket's so full.

Well, maybe you're, uh, too easily discouraged.

I'll bet you threw some of your best efforts

in the wastebasket.

All tracking stations

of the Atlantic Net are on the alert,

their clocks coordinated to compensate

for the fraction of a second it takes each timing system

to travel through the telephone cable to this giant computer

which files the thousands of items of information.

Such filing systems as these have all but eliminated

the possibility of human error.

MAN: Lox control in process of tanking.

But nothing dramatic ever happens to me.

And I can't find anything interesting

to take to school.

How'd it be if you just took yourself to school?

Lox tanking now completed.

What do you mean interesting?

You know, something the teacher can talk about.

Oh.

Well, why don't you take the Indian arrowheads?

Mike used them for something interesting

when he was in the third grade; then Robbie used them

and, uh, now you can use them.

If I can find them.

What's interesting about an arrowhead?

The arrowhead is the ancestor of all missiles

mechanically propelled.

Zero minus 13.

All stations ready for counting. (siren wailing)

Jeepers, the rocket!

Arrowheads won't help my English theme any.

Well, I've got the first ten lines down cold.

Chip, come back and finish your breakfast now.

(horn trumpets) Chip, you leave my trumpet alone!

I told you I'd bop you one if you ever touched my...

(horn trumpets)

Well, what'd you do with it?

MAN: Custom Banner Alpha, this is Custom Nine.

Out for now.

Where's my trumpet?!

Would you please repeat that, George?

I didn't quite read you.

What'd you do with my trumpet?!

I didn't do anything with it!

It's right there on the floor where you put it!

Test conductor from Coordinator.

Go ahead, Coordinator. What's the latest report?

It isn't here!

You have 100% optics.

Where is it?!

How should I know?

You were playing it in the bedroom.

Everything checks out okay on this level.

There may be some turbulence up above.

Oh, yeah. I was playing reveille.

You are correct.

I believe we had this, uh,

once before, didn't we?

Come on, Chip, Robbie, finish your...

Shall I throw the oatmeal out or fry it for dinner?

I don't know what's wrong with everybody this morning.

Oh, daylight saving ended yesterday and we moved

the clock ahead an hour, don't you remember?

Oh, that's right, we all lost an hour of sleep.

Maybe that's it.

I have to leave the house at 8:30.

MAN: The launching area will please be evacuated at once.

COMMENTATOR: Zero minus ten.

Oh, Chip, I'll get those Indian arrowheads for you.

Go back and finish your breakfast, will you?

Mike, don't forget to burn that trash.

We're leaving here in ten minutes.

Okay, we now have a clear launchpad.

COMMENTATOR: Only one big question mark remains.

Will the months of precision planning

result in a successful take off?

In only minutes now we shall have the answer.

Robbie, do you know where those Indian arrowheads are?

Remember, you had them when you were in the third grade.

How can I think about arrowheads?

I can't even find my trumpet?

I'm supposed to play a solo this afternoon.

How can you lose a trumpet?

You just played reveille on it, didn't you?

Must be in here someplace. Have you looked?

Yeah, everywhere. Did you look under the bed?

Well, of course. Just got finished looking there.

Well, wait a minute. Now, this is silly.

Where were you when you last had it?

Well, I was right here.

All right, and where was the trumpet?

I guess it was laying on the table.

Suppose this is the trumpet.

Now what happened?

Well, I picked it up

and I started playing reveille like this.

(vocalizing reveille) All right. Robbie!

Robbie, look, you don't have to play the whole thing.

What happened next?

I'm not sure.

I guess I went back to sleep again.

How do you mean?

Like this.

COMMENTATOR: Preflight calculations,

allowing for the forces of speed and gravity,

predict the missile's course within a matter of inches.

Hey, take it easy.

My drawing has to get to the office in one piece.

The trumpet sure couldn't have gotten in that basket.

(rattling) No, but something else did.

Zero minus nine.

The arrowheads, in an Indian basket.

Where else?

You see how logic pays off, Robbie?

Now... Here, try again for your trumpet.

The entries in America's race for space supremacy

are at their stations in a concrete mass

called the blockhouse.

These final moments are the culmination...

"So priketh hem Nature in hir corages

"Thanne longen folk to goon

"on pilgrimages.

"So priketh hem Nature... pilgrimages.

"Priketh hem nature in hir corages

Thanne longen folk..."

(vocalizing reveille) Robbie, you don't have to play it all the way through

every time; you're going to get my drawing wet.

Now, begin at the end, will you?

(singsongy): "Whan that Aprill...

"The droghte of March hath perced...

perced to the roote..."

(vocalizing slow)

COMMENTATOR: Only by repeated trials can success be assured.

Obviously you dropped it right there.

Well, it isn't there now. No.

Well, I'm not going to ruin my drawing

by using it for a trumpet anymore.

No device has yet been invented

to rule out the unforeseen accident.

"The droghte of March hath..."

I'll flunk English and miss band practice.

I might as well stay home now.

My drawing.

It's gone.

"hath in ever holt and heeth..."

How could it be gone?

Well, maybe it's in your room?

Yeah.

I seken y-matche to burne ye trashe.

Oh, you must be past line 18.

I don't recall that one.

I mean I need a match.

Oh, I don't know that they had matches

in Chaucer's time or not.

Here, try these.

Tension mounts as the test conductor

estimates the overall situation

and takes his station at the firing button.

Where were you when you last saw the drawing?

I was standing right here.

The drawing was on the table.

Oh, I-I'll admit I wasn't too wide awake when I did it,

but I'm sure I rolled it up and I put it in the tube.

How? Show me.

Like this.

I rolled it up.

"Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth..."

Then I reached over here, I got a tube.

And I put the drawing in it just like that.

All stations now on end-countdown status.

Stand by.

Hey, it worked! Here it is!

Good! My trumpet!

Your trumpet? Where's my drawing? (playing)

(singing): "Hem Nature in hir corages..."

It just couldn't have walked away by itself.

Zero minus five. Wait a minute.

The wastebasket was right there.

It must be in the wastebasket.

Mike!

Roger.

Don't burn it!

Clear the deck. Mike, don't burn it!

Roger, now turning heater systems on to full.

(fire crackling)

Robbie, no!

I've got a hot iron. The iron is hot.

I've got to get... Mike, don't light it!

Zero minus three.

Beacon. Go!

G Nose cone.

Go! My drawing... G guidance and IP. Go!

AFMTC Telemeter.

Go!

Missile and internal. (crashing)

Affirmative. Range ready.

Go.

Oh, no!

(fire crackling)

It's all right.

Eight hours work almost gone up in smoke.

Come on, Robbie, back inside. Come on.

Minus 1:45.

Engine test.

Missile AC and DC.

(door closes) Now, what's going on?

Aren't you going to finish your breakfast? Haven't got time.

Come on, everybody, we're going right now.

Minus 60 seconds.

Come on, Chip. We have to leave now.

Wait, Dad, I want to see this.

I'm sorry, Chip. Come on, get your jacket on.

Please, they're just about to show the countdown.

Get your jacket on. It's going to fire in 50 seconds.

COMMENTATOR: Zero minus 50 seconds.

Removing arming safety pin.

Arm switch to arm.

All right, all set everybody?

Let's go. Oh, I've got to get my arrowheads.

Oh, no, you stay here, Chip. I don't want to lose you.

What did I do with those arrowheads, Rob?

Probably in my room, Dad. Get them, will you please?

Hold this, will you? Hurry it up, will you?

Zero minus 40 seconds. (siren wailing)

Range ready switch on.

Minus 30.

Starting bomb removal.

Pressure?

Satisfactory.

Water system?

Satisfactory.

Minus 20.

Nose cone?

All pre-start panel lights are green.

Missile preparation complete.

All recorders to fast.

Start lights.

Start countdown.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,

three, two... BUB: Robbie.

One.

(engine rumbling)

(engine rumbling)

Easy, baby. Go.

(engine rumbling)

Keep going, baby.

(engine rumbling)

(engine rumbling)

(explosion)

COMMENTATOR: This time the months of work ended in failure.

The rocket went off course and had to be destroyed

by remote control.

(turns off TV)

(sighs)

What's the matter now?

Bub, when daylight savings ended last night,

what did you say you did?

I set the clock in the kitchen ahead an hour.

And I set my wristwatch

and my alarm clock by the kitchen clock.

So?

Well, Bub, I'm sure we're not the only ones

that made this mistake, but when daylight savings ended,

I think we should've set the clocks back an hour.

Back? How can you save any time that way?

Jeepers, you mean the car radio was right?

I'm afraid so, Chip.

The time is now exactly

6:38 in the morning. Good night.

MIKE (yawns): No wonder I'm tired.

Wake me up at 8:30.

ROBBIE: Two whole hours.

This is worse than going duck hunting.

COMMENTATOR: The film you have just seen was of an actual attempt

to put a satellite into orbit in June 1957.

1957? I thought it was right now.

The film has been released by the Air Force

to acquaint the public with the vast difficulties

that have had to be overcome in expediting the space program.

But in scientific work, what is called failure

is often the greatest success.

Instead, the unsuccessful tests

should be called rehearsals.

Rehearsals which lead

to the final perfect performance.

Yes, man is dreaming.

Dreaming of the day when his knowledge will take him

far beyond the dimensions of Earth.

(siren wailing) "The most dramatic incident...

"in my life:

"The Monday morning countdown.

Niner, eight... "Sometimes when everything

seven, six, "seems to be going wrong,

five, four, three, "it's really going right.

Two, one. "For example, I was about

"to fail English

"until we all made a mistake.

Looks good. "And the mistake

"gave me the opportunity

Still on track. "to write this theme

"and something dramatic to write about.

Keep going, baby.

"One morning, at the end of daylight saving time...

Are you still tracking?

Yes, sir. Things looking real fine.

I woke up and started playing reveille..."

Got a real runner here.

Plus 60 seconds.

Mark five.

All the way, boy.