Moonbase Alpha Travel Tube Details
catacombs.space1999.net
catacombs.space1999.net
I had the Revel model Eagle and it seemed like a sensible design for lunar utility craft. The Dynetics design seems closest in the current HLS batch: the opposite of tail sitters.
For my 5th Xmas I still remember getting a giant Eagle ship. The cockpit was removable from the center structure and the pilots could eject.
I loved the show, back when it originally aired.
Then, it got syndicated, a couple of years ago, and I tried watching it again.
What a letdown.
I still love Landau and Bain, but the sets and effects struggle, against today’s capabilities.
Same here, but not because sets or effects, but plots and jargon. Some of the ideas are interesting. But the whole premise was shocking even for my child self.
Don't forget, the 70s were the time when typical American cop dramas showed cars exploding into fireballs whenever their wheels left the ground.
Some bits of tech seem a little silly though, such as the remote-control doors and the computers that spit out paper receipts and don't have proper screens. Almost a decade previously, Star Trek at least got those correct, and computers in the 70s already had screens, so I'm not sure why they screwed that up so badly. The sets on Space:1999 look fantastic (esp. in HD), but they don't really make that much sense.
Space: 1999 appeared a few years later and I not only understood what was going on, but had devoured a fat Astronomy book so I also had a decent idea of the distances involved.
The episode with Ian McShane was great anyway.
that it and many other shows were so much more unrealistic a decade after star trek is really the weird thing. like for example jason of space command with james doohan. it's absolutely cringe
Pity about the plots.
The show was ridiculous, but every time I see it mentioned I have to go watch the intro and show's theme music.
Of course it's dated now, but I don't think it's more ridiculous than today's superhero franchises
If you compare to other British 1970s TV SF, like Dr Who, it was a remarkable effort.
FWIW: apparently Sylvia Anderson sincerely thought that wigs were the future.
Was very surprised to discover that link.
Now fading in the misty passages of the brain, but I think this show was maybe the first scifi saga that had a distinct feel of being real. Loved the Eagles in particular, for some reason that I still don't understand.
1999 was SO far away when I was a kid in the 1970's.
The whole premise that the Moon is heading into deep space because of a nuclear explosion that went off on one side is hard to stomach. (Kid me had no problem with it of course.)
Maybe something like "When World's Collide" they could have had some Nemesis-like object pass through the Solar System and capture the Moon or send it flying away. (I mean, they would probably still be scooting through the Oort Cloud for both seasons though.)
Stargate Universe seems a bit closer in the sense that (for large parts) they can't control their spaceship and just have to go explore and get back on board quickly.
Even if it was traveling at near light speed, it should take thousands of years before they encounter another planet. And if they were traveling that fast, they would barely see these planets for a fraction of a second before continuing on their journey :-)
But well, great scifi show back then.
still remains the problem of everything needing to be pitch black all the time. i think even without finding any other planets they had a magic light source on the moon.
It's going in a random direction, and probably in a straight line.
Statistically, even at light speed, they would probably only encounter another system every few millions of years or so.
i am assuming the most optimistic outcome that is physically possible, no matter how unrealistic. because if we go by statistics we'd have to scrap most movies that are about an unrealistic (but possible) event.
https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/um.html
My particular favourite is the Eagle Hangars:
It's hilarious that the "TRAVEL UNIT" sign hanging from the ceiling is in MICR font (E-13B). Why would you need a machine readable font on a sign meant for humans?
There was no CGI used in Space: 1999, it's all practical model and optical effects. And as far as I can tell, it was all done on film, even though it was a TV show, so all of the effects shots could be rescanned for HD, or possibly even 4K.
It wasn't crazy to think that in another 30 years, a full moon base could be built, if only some economic or military incentives had existed.
Then I think of my parents' generation. They grew up with literal Hitler dominating the news. For them, it was "will civilization last the year?".
These are better days. Better days are shining through.
The latter seems harder to get buy-in for.
Or Blade Runner in 1983: it was set in the year 2017, with biological humanoid "replicants", flying cars, colonies on other worlds, etc.
Star Trek in the late 60s predicted the "Eugenics Wars" in the late 1990s, along with deep-space spacecraft (one of which carried Khan Noonien Singh so far away that it took centuries for his ship to be discovered by the Enterprise on its deep-space mission).
(edit) Overall, I'd say the most accurate sci-fi I've ever seen, as far as predicting things, is the 1986 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie "The Running Man".
Best I can think of was a surprisingly sophisticated 1970 young adult book by John Christopher, which had a mid 21st century Britain run by a Brave New World style low key authoritarian surveillance state divided between overcrowded cities that had very modest use of technology like electric cars and "holovision" and well to do rural areas that have an Amish style renunciation of technology like cars (but really the continued existence of their society depends on tech). Particularly because it lampshaded all the sci fi that was coming out at the time by having a teacher tell the kids "we stopped spending money on the space programme because it was a waste of money"...
(Oryx and Crake is very good too, though the sequels lose a bit because it turns out all the cliches about the world outside their gated community are actually true...)
The Running Man was based on a psuedonymous Stephen King novel, FWIW
Not really. "Inspired by", yes, but I wouldn't say it was "based on" it at all. The plot had almost no similarity. The future predictions were all made by the script writer AFAIK.
Rockets are more expensive, require more maintenance, and consume fuel or reaction mass.