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Moonbase Alpha Travel Tube Details
- ugh123 3y agoIf we're just talking human travel and light payloads, why not lean on EVTOLs on the moon? With less gravity and less track/infra to build could be a cheaper option
- DerekL 3y agoThese tubes only connect various locations of a single base, they don't cover the entire moon. The longest trip is probably only a few kilometers. Rockets are more expensive, require more maintenance, and consume fuel or reaction mass.
- michaelsmanley 3y agoIIRC, that decision has been covered in one of the many documentaries covering Nuclear Waste Disposal Area 2 and the 9/13/1999 accident.
- andrewstuart 3y agoI loved Space 1999. 1999 was SO far away when I was a kid in the 1970's.
- dekhn 3y agoI didn't love it (or Star Trek) but I was really looking forward to going to space in 1999.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoLoved the look. 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.)
- mark_undoio 3y agoI like to think that it's essentially Star Trek Voyager's situation but they've just got the entire moon instead of a spaceship.
- munchler 3y agoDon't forget Lost In Space and Battlestar Galactica. All essentially the same premise.
- mark_undoio 3y agoTrue! What seems a little unusual about Space 1999 was their lack of control over where they went. In Voyager they have some agency, in BSG they're searching for something, etc. 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.
- shiroiuma 3y agoIt's indeed a ridiculous premise, but no less ridiculous than the more-recent book and movie "The Martian", where a wind storm on Mars is the initial event that triggers all the following drama. (The atmospheric pressure on Mars is 1/200 that of Earth's; there's no way any kind of wind storm there would have any significant effect on people.)
- KineticLensman 3y agoYeah, but one you get past the windstorm, the majority of the film has a superb engineering / science focus. Really plausible, right up until the last ten minutes.
- hackeraccount 3y agoI know it's hard to rate these things but I'm still reluctant to agree that both plot devices were equally ridiculous.
- 3y ago
- golergka 3y agoIt's even farther now!
- anonymousiam 3y agoI loved watching this show as a kid. 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? https://www.1001fonts.com/micr-encoding-font.html https://www.1001fonts.com/micr-encoding-font.html
- _a_a_a_ 3y agoFor the scutters... err, hang on...
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoCould make it easier to build accessibility devices for the blind or for folks who don't speak the language?
- sbisson 3y agoThere's a fair bit of detail in the recently released Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual, one of a series of in-universe documents from various Anderson shows.
- imglorp 3y agoThat site is a labor of love, and well deserved by the creatives who made the show. 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.
- madengr 3y agoThe 1973 movie Genesis II also had travel tubes on a post-apocalyptic earth. 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.
- _a_a_a_ 3y agoBarbara Bain (playing Helena Russell in Space 1999) married Martin Landau (captain(?) Koenig in same). They had a daughter Juliet Landau who played - IMO played rather well - Drusilla in Buffy, the vampire who was about fifteen sandwiches and eleven cupcakes and a bottle of lemonade short of a picnic. Was very surprised to discover that link.
- bewaretheirs 3y agoBain and Landau previously worked together in Mission: Impossible (seasons 1-3).
- bregma 3y agoLandau was replaced in M:I by Leonard Nimoy, indicating Space:1999 and Star Trek may be in the same universe.
- senectus1 3y agoI always enjoyed watching Drusilla episodes.
- reidacdc 3y agoCommander Koenig.
- AndrewStephens 3y agoSpace 1999 was a ridiculous show but there has never been a better TV show as far as production design does. The sets look cool and appear functional in a way that other shows (even modern star treks) can only aspire to. Pity about the plots.
- ahazred8ta 3y agoThe sets, models, and wardrobe were originally intended for season 2 of UFO, but not enough US stations wanted to syndicate it. We got Plan B.
- GeekyBear 3y ago> UFO The show was ridiculous, but every time I see it mentioned I have to go watch the intro and show's theme music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDy4OMAkgY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDy4OMAkgY
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoI'm still a fan. I rewatched a few years ago. It's darker than I remember and there are sexier elements I completely missed as a kid. Some of the episode themes - like racism - were far ahead of their time. 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.
- euroderf 3y agoThe Barry Gray music plus the OTT wardrobes plus the absurdity of Straker's job & HQ-bunker make an irresistible combination. FWIW: apparently Sylvia Anderson sincerely thought that wigs were the future.
- hliyan 3y agoRecall that their hand held communicators actually worked (the screen).
- 3y ago
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoThis was one of those “the past through rose-tinted glasses” things for me. 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.
- narag 3y agoThen, it got syndicated, a couple of years ago, and I tried watching it again. 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.
- shiroiuma 3y agoThe initial premise, as ridiculous as it was, wasn't really more ridiculous than other sci-fi of the time. There's lots of sci-fi movies and TV shows in the 60s and 70s with hilariously bad depictions of basic physics. 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.
- narag 3y agoI didn't really understand much of Star Trek or the series of that time, like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel or Mission: Impossible. I loved the imagery, the diving or space scenes and the gadgets, but the plots were impenetrable. 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.
- 3y ago
- incompatible 3y agoSpace: 1999 was made in the 1970s, and it's remarkable how optimistic they were about what could be achieved in a little over 20 years. 2099 may have been a more realistic date.
- dragonwriter 3y agoThe date, I would imagine, wasn't chosen because it was a reasonable technical projection, but because 1999 is a high-value “pending-odometer-turnover” year.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoActually, I suspect that everything in that show was possible in 1999 (the base, the equipment, etc). But no-one wanted to pay the gazillion dollars it would have required.
- gvurrdon 3y agoPerhaps not the "stun gun". It would be interesting to know if a properly-qualified engineer has ever taken a look at the Eagle and determined if it would be possible (e.g. with nuclear thermal rockets).
- em-bee 3y agomaybe the explosion was caused by a Y2K bug
- narag 3y agoIt took less than 30 years for the V2 to evolve into Saturn V and moon landings. 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.
- hliyan 3y agoPerhaps we're going through something similar with computing today. More likely that we're in a brief summer than at the foot of perpetual growth.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoThere was a nice attempt a bit over a decade ago to update some of the CGI to make it less dated and to retcon out some of the science and production failures. It also moved the show to 2099. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPTZaSv9Bxk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPTZaSv9Bxk
- em-bee 3y agoto be honest, as nice as that is, i'd rather see a full remake than just a re-editing.
- wantoncl 3y ago> update some of the CGI 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.
- nologic01 3y ago"You promised me Moonbases, and instead, I got Facebook" 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.
- anodari 3y agoNow I know from where came Javier Milei.
- zeristor 3y agoThis page is a guide to the different parts of the Moonbase: https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/um.html https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/um.html My particular favourite is the Eagle Hangars: https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/umhangar.html https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/umhangar.html