In the year 2050, NASA has chosen to restart the space shuttle program and bring its shuttles out of the current retirement status and made flyable again - with the intent to have Boeing & other aerospace contractors build shuttle fleets for the United Nations, Japan, the European Union, their home United States of America, and the United Kingdom. Inspired by the films SpaceCamp from 1986 and Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys, seven youths attending the Space Camp program are accidentally launched with their instructor astronauts aboard the orbiter Excelsior to save the International Space Station and the Earth from an errant North Korean missile satellite.
