Marooned Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ironman One

Launched atop a Saturn V moon rocket, Ironman One carries its crew - mission commander Jim Pruett (Richard Crenna), command module pilot Buzz Lloyd (Gene Hackman), and scientist-pilot Clayton Stone (James Franciscus) - to a orbiting Saturn laboratory.

The laboratory is made from the third stage of a Saturn V, as was the real-life Skylab, which was launched in 1973. The real-life launch of Apollo 8 in December, 1968 allowed the filmmakers to capture the footage they used for the launch of Ironman One in the movie.

In real life, Skylab crews were rocketed into space atop the smaller Saturn IB booster.

Answer: Astronaut fatigue

Reviewing motion-picture footage of the Ironman One crew in action, the head of Manned Space, Charles Keith (Gregory Peck) realizes that they are making more mistakes the longer they stay in space. Most telling is a short summary from a tired Buzz Lloyd, relating various minor breakdowns onboard the station. Keith decides to bring them down, confident that they've done a good job even though the mission has to be shortened.

Answer: David Janssen

Charles Keith is unconvinced that a rescue mission can be pulled together in time. He cites various reports and charts previously developed just for that purpose to prove his point. Dougherty, heedless of the facts which he himself researched, is overcome with emotion and wants to do something to save his friends.

David Janssen starred in several TV shows during a career cut short when he died of a heart attack in 1980, at the age of 48. He's best known for playing Dr. Richard Kimble, the doctor sentenced to die for killing his wife but determined to find the one-armed man who did, in the popular ABC-TV show "The Fugitive".

Answer: X-RV

The X-RV was a wedge-shaped lifting body similar to real-life craft being used for hypersonic flight research that would eventually result in the space shuttle. Like Boeing's X-20, which was the heart of the US Air Force's Project Dyna-Soar, the X-RV was designed to be launched into space atop a Titan III rocket booster, conduct orbital operations, and return to Earth like an airplane.

The X-RV had not been man-rated, a point of contention for Charles Keith, who didn't trust the untested spacecraft. To shorten the time that it would take to launch it, Keith gave very specific instructions on the myriad steps to bypass in assembling and testing the Titan booster and the X-RV's systems. And Ted Dougherty undertook a crash program at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to learn how to fly it. That training included learning how to rendezvous with the stricken Apollo spacecraft so he could rescue his friends.

Answer: San Diego

Jim Pruett is touched by the display of affection that his hometown has accorded him. In real life, the moment mirrored one experienced by astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. During his first orbit on board Friendship 7 in February, 1962, Glenn observed the lights of Perth, Australia. Many people in Perth turned their lights on so that Glenn would see them.

Answer: Mariette Hartley

Betty Lloyd and her compatriots Celia Pruett (Lee Grant) and Teresa Stone (Nancy Kovack) support their husbands but cannot help but worry about them while they're on the job. Lloyd keeps a calm presence, but that veneer is shattered when she sees her husband lose his cool as the spacecraft's oxygen supply starts running out.

A versatile character actor, Mariette Hartley appeared in a number of movie and television shows during her career, including guest appearances on "Gunsmoke", "The Incredible Hulk", "McCloud", and "Star Trek". She also had a star turn opposite Bill Bixby, with whom she worked on "The Incredible Hulk", on the short-lived CBS sitcom "Goodnight, Beantown". Hartley may be better known for her work hawking Polaroid cameras during the 1970s and 1980s, alongside fellow actor James Garner.

Answer: Alma

While awaiting rescue, Clayton Stone recognizes the formation of a hurricane in the Atlantic. And he comments to his fellow crew members that it will be a big storm. Originally thought to be headed out to sea, Hurricane Alma changes course and takes aim at Cape Kennedy and the US Air Force launch complex there.

The first window for launching the X-RV comes on Monday night at 8:48 PM, but the storm's winds are too high to launch the X-RV through. Keith, in frustration, orders a hold. Spirits are down as everyone thinks all is lost. But they have a second chance for a shot, at 10:31 PM, as the eye of the hurricane passes over.

Answer: True

The delay caused by Hurricane Alma means that there is only enough oxygen onboard the Apollo spacecraft for two men to live long enough until Dougherty arrives. After talking with Charles Keith, Jim Pruett makes the decision to take a spacewalk to see if he can fix the spacecraft's dead engine. While outside, his spacesuit rips open, venting his breathing air into space. Pruett floats away, out of reach of Lloyd and Stone.

A Russian cosmonaut arrives on the scene before Dougherty does, and attempts to administer aid to Lloyd and Stone. When Dougherty gets there, he and the cosmonaut are able to give the men fresh oxygen and prepare to bring the men down from orbit.

Answer: Martin Caidin

Originally released in 1964, "Marooned" told the story of Richard Pruett, who is stranded in space when the retro-rockets on his Mercury spacecraft refuse to fire. His friend, astronaut Jim Dougherty, presses the space agency to let him fly a new two-man Gemini spacecraft to rescue Pruett.

When Columbia Pictures made the motion picture based on the novel, Martin Caidin novelized it to reflect the changes in spacecraft. Caidin wrote over 50 books during his lifetime, including "Cyborg", a Science Fiction story used as the basis of the American TV shows "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman".

Answer: John Sturges

"Marooned" was released by Columbia Pictures in November, 1969. It won an Academy Award for Special Visual Effects, beating out the volcano disaster movie "Krakatoa: East of Java", and was nominated for Oscars for Best Sound and Cinematography.

The year prior to the release of "Marooned", John Sturges directed the Cold War thriller "Ice Station Zebra" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, based on the novel by Alistair MacLean and featuring an all-male cast headlined by Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine and Patrick McGoohan. Before that, Sturges made his name at the helm of a number of notable Westerns, including "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957), and "The Magnificent Seven" (1960).