Is there anything more 1980's than a ragtag group of adolescent misfits? After detention (The Breakfast Club) and secret underground caves (The Goonies), what do you do for an encore? Outer space, naturally.

1986 brought the release of SpaceCamp, an adventure/comedy set at the real-life United States Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Kate Capshaw and Tom Skerritt provided the adult quotient, while rising stars Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott and Joaquin (then "Leaf") Phoenix formed the youthful motley crew.

Skerritt plays ex-astronaut Zach, who runs SpaceCamp with the help of his astronaut wife Andie. Into this junior spaceman training center come go-getter Kathryn, pretty boy Kevin, science whiz Rudy, junior Star Wars junkie Max and Tish, a Valley Girl with a photographic memory. The fivesome are assigned to work together, but their constant infighting sends Andie into stern lecture mode.

Surprisingly, the group wins a chance to sit in the real space shuttle as its engine boosters are tested. Little outcast Max has a robotic buddy named Jinx, who knows the boy's longing to see the stars. The robot rigs NASA's computers so that the booster test turns into a real launch, sending Andie and the kids into outer space, and with a shortage of oxygen to boot. They've got the skills, but they'll only make it back working as a team.

In a case of spectacularly unfortunate timing, SpaceCamp was due for release shortly after the tragic Challenger explosion. 20th Century Fox pushed the release date forward several months, but it wasn't enough. SpaceCamp barely got off the ground, but it did influence a generation of young space junkies and astro-wannabes to hound their parents for a trip to the real Space Camp.