The concept is terrific:

A struggling NASA, faced with opponents in Congress and a bad track record, decides that it can’t afford any more “screwups” as NASA head Hal Holbrook’s character puts it. When it’s discovered that corner cutting would result in a malfunctioning life support system that would leave a trio of astronauts, NASA’s backers decide they’ll fake the planned Mars landing to save the program. They ensure the astronauts will go along with it by claiming their families are aboard a single plane armed with a bomb which will be detonated if they don’t play along.

Why the movie fails:
Plot holes you could drive a bus through.

• SPOILERS AHEAD**

Elliot Gould’s reporter character has his car tampered with by the baddies resulting in no brakes and (somehow) a gas pedal that keeps pushing itself down(?!?) Despite speeds reaching 100 miles an hour, he manages to avoid running into another car or any other obstruction in busy traffic until reaching a boat bridge, which is opening as he reaches it (at 100MPH). Gould plunges into the water car and all and not only manages to escape drowning, but doesn’t appear to be significantly hurt.

A chase scene late in the movie finds Brubaker clinging to the wing of a cropduster as he, Gould and a minor character are attacked by shooting helicopters. Brubaker manages to hang onto the plane’s wing despite barrel rolls, dives and loop-de-loops as they try to evade the copters.

During the fake Mars landing, the astronauts don’t “bounce” as they would in weaker gravity…they walk just like they would on Earth. Perhaps the script’s writer believes we’ll have “weighted” spacesuits by that point in time, but it isn’t addressed in the script.

I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting but you get the point…too little attention spent on the actual script once the basic plot was arrived at.

I gave it two stars anyway because the action sequences ARE good to watch, but there’s too much disbelief to suspend to really enjoy this one unless you’re looking for a movie you can laugh at Mystery Science Theater 3000 style…