There is a bit of trivia which should be pointed out about a scene early in the movie where Homer watches the attempt of December 6, 1957 (at least that was the video used on the TV he was watching) which showed the Vangard launch attempt, which failed.<br /><br />He is next shown reading or dictating a letter to Dr. Von Braun offering condolences about the failure.<br /><br />Von Braun was at Marshall space flight center in Huntsville working for the Army. The Vanguard project was by the early Nasa team which was at what soon became Goddard Space flight center.<br /><br />The army rushed the Jupiter-C, which was essentially a US made V2 technology, but worked to launch a satellite in response to Russia's success with Sputnik.<br /><br />This error may have actually been made by Homer, because of the notoriety of Von Braun, but his team didn't have their attempt fail. In fact the underlying Redstone was flying from 52 and was the first US man rated booster, used for Shepard's sub orbital flight, as well as Grissom's.<br /><br />This is why this sort of movie is so good, as it hopefully will inspire people to read up and spot these bits of trivia, and in the process see what has been done, and be inspired to do more.