The X Files 109 Space Trivia, Facts, Goofs & Description

 When a space shuttle mission is sabotaged, Mulder suspects it may be the work of an alien spirit that inhabits the body of a former Gemini astronaut.

Trivia

•  Although the series made use of a good amount of inexpensive stock footage from NASA, the construction of the command center set was subject to cost overruns, leading the episode to become the most expensive of the first season.
• Col. Belt was the mission command of Gemini 8 which nearly ended in disaster and had to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean. This mirrors the real Gemini 8 commanded by Neil Armstrong. After docking with the Agena the coupled vehicles began an increasing unordered/uncontrollable spin. Armstrong was forced to emergency separate from the Agena, in hopes that would stop the spin. When it did not, he then fired the retro rockets to arrest the spin which resulted in the mission being aborted.
• Visual effects supervisor Mat Beck had only 4 days to create the special effects needed for the episode.
• This was intended as a "bottle episode" to save money by being shot in a single location, but still went over budget.
• The interior shots were filmed on a set constructed at an old Molson brewery site.
• When Mulder asks Michelle for access to her records, a starwars.doc is visible on the computer screen.
• This episode takes place in 1977 and 1993.
• Guest star Susanna Thompson has also appeared on an NCIS (2003) episode entitled The Ex-File.

spoilers

• This 1993 episode uses footage of three different shuttles. The aborted first launch sequence shows the shuttle Discovery. The successful second sequence shows the ill fated shuttle Columbia. In 2003, ten years after this episode premiered, the shuttle Columbia would disintegrate on reentry due to damaged heat tiles. Colonel Belt says in the episode, "the shuttle can't survive reentry. The fuselage- the fuselage is damaged. Silicone tiles are destroyed." When the shuttle is shown in orbit, the name on the tail appears be that of the space shuttle Challenger. The Challenger exploded 73 seconds after its launch on January 28, 1986.

Goofs

• (at around 28 mins) Michelle was involved in a car accident, which left her bruised at several places on her face. In the scenes following Col. Belt's press interview, there is absolutely no hint of any scar or injury on her face.
• Before the car crash, both cars have their wipers on because it is raining hard. And it is foggy. This poor visibility contributes to the car crash. After the crash it is not raining and not foggy

Spoilers

• It is not consistently depicted whether Marcus Belt served in the US Air Force or US Navy. In the present time of the story he is a Colonel (USAF) but is referred to as "CMDR" (US Navy) during his Gemini spacewalk. He is shown wearing Naval Aviator wings on his space suit. At NASA and in the obituary however, he is shown to be an Air Force Officer. However, the Navy Blue Angels flies over his funeral.
• (at around 22 mins) Launch pad personnel in orange suits are seen at the base of the main Shuttle engines less than two minutes before launch. In reality, all close-out crew depart the launch pad three hours prior to launch.
• Throughout the episode NASA addresses the shuttle crew as "OTC" while in reality OTC stands for Orbiter Test Conductors. The OTC is the individual in charge of the engineers monitoring the hardware and software on board the orbiter itself. Other test conductors are responsible for the external tank and solid rocket boosters, the payloads, support operations, landing operations, safety, communications and other functions.
• A flight of Navy Blue Angels flies over the funeral. The colonel being buried and most of the service members present were Air Force personnel.
• When looking for the evidence of Colonel Belt's knowledge of the sabotage, Scully is going through a series of numbered dossiers, two of them bearing the same number 54.
• Anachronisms
• Mulder states he is a big fan of Col. Belt and watched his Gemini 8 mission when he was 14 years old. Gemini 8 flew in March 1966. It was later established in the series that Mulder was born in October 1961.
• Since the first televised US space mission was Apollo 7, in October, 1968, Mulder could not have stayed up to watch a Gemini EV event.