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"What's happened to us out there in space is beyond explanations..."
On September 13, 1999, a nuclear accident blasted the moon out of the Earth's orbit and sent it sailing off into space.
Or at least that's the way it happened in SPACE: 1999, the 1970s tv show from British producer Gerry Anderson. Running for just two seasons, this series explored the encounters of the wayward moon colony as its residents adapted to life away from Earth.
The Premiere of SPACE: 1999
The show really did premiere on September 13th, only the year was 1975. That day also happens to be my father's birthday, and at the appointed time, he, my uncle and I (the three sci-fi geeks in the family) all trooped down to the tv room to line up on the couch to watch the premiere episode.The birthday cake had already had the candles blown out on it, and my mom came down with slices for everyone during a commercial break.
Part of the excitement was that Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, both known from the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE tv show, were a real-life couple at the time, playing a couple on the show as well. Landau was Commander John Koenig and Bain was Dr. Helena Russell. This was the most expensive British television show in production at the time, and a variety of the elements of the show were manipulated to retain American investment and audiences. Star Trek fandom was a new and nonetheless hot thing at the time and the hunt was on for the next big sci-fi show.
By having the accident on the moon happen suddenly, it gave more latitude for age and diversity in the cast. This wasn't a crack team sent into space for exploration, it was whoever just happened to be at Moonbase at the time of the nuclear disaster. With the moon moving through space, carrying a colony of people, storylines shifted between character stories and situations on the base, and encounters with aliens and various space phenomena.
Get Into Space: 1999
Exploring Space 1999: An Episode Guide and Complete History of the Mid-1970s Science Fiction Television Series
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Space 1999 Megaset
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SPACE: 1999 Websites and Info
- Space: 1999 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Space: 1999 (ITC Entertainment, 1975-77) was a British science-fiction television show about the journey of the occupants of a Moon base after the Moon is knocked out of orbit by a nuclear explosion.
- "Space: 1999" (1975)
- Space: 1999 on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more...
- Space1999.org
- Space:1999.org: Focused on the 1970s sci-fi television series, Space: 1999, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
- SPACE:1999 YEAR ONE EPISODE GUIDE
- EPISODE GUIDE (Year One) Episodes listed in production order with production number in brackets
- Space: 1999 Net
- Welcome to Space: 1999 Net, a collection of Space: 1999 themed websites.
Deutsch-English-Español-Français-Italiano-Português - Space 1999: Television Gallery: Mego Museum
- Space: 1999 was a Gerry Anderson produced series meant to capture the popularity of Star Trek , at the time it's budgets were the largest known for television.
- SPACE: 1999
- A nuclear accident at a lunar-based waste disposal site propels our moon out of Earth orbit and into deep space. The 311 residents of Moonbase Alpha find themselves adrift in space with no way to control their course through the interstellar void. OK, give it a D- for scientific plausibility, but an A+ for originality.
- screenonline: Space: 1999 (1975-77)
- Space: 1999 was originally conceived by producer Gerry Anderson as a direct follow-on from his previous series, UFO (ITV, 1971-72). But a last minute decision to drop the programme by his US distributor left the production hanging in the balance. US audience figures for UFO had slumped and it was felt that the series, about Earth defending itself from aliens harvesting human organs for transplant, had run its course. But with pre-production work on a second run of UFO already well underway, it was agreed that a compromise should be reached - US investment was agreed on one condition: all the action had to be set on the Moon.
- Space: 1999 @ pHinnWeb
- Space: 1999 Episode Guide, Trading Cards and Links
- Space:1999 Fiction Archive
- Archive of fan fiction about the 1970s science-fiction series Space:1999, starring Barbara Bain and Martin Landau.
Space: 1999 Action Figures
Find those Space:1999 action figures missing from your collection!
Where To Suspend Your Disbelief
Ok, so the BIG argument was "hey, if an explosion on the Moon had really happened like that, they wouldn't have gone flying off into space!"You have to really let go of a lot of physics and space theory if you're going to watch and enjoy this show. Chances are nearly impossible that an explosion could really knock the Moon free of the Earth's gravitational field and send it off on a trajectory through space. Chances are much greater that the Moon would either be blown apart and become space debris or that the debris would rain down upon the Earth.
People who also want to argue that the Moon wouldn't go flying off in a straight line into space, and that there is no way that it would pass so many planets without becoming ensnared in some gravitational field, will find there's no much argument against them. They're right, but remember, this is a fictional tv show so that's why the Earth's Moon went flying off into space with 311 people on it, having adventures and alien encounters.
Shown here, actor Christopher Lee as the alien Captain Zantor.
SPACE:1999 Collectibles and Memorabilia
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