Like it's 1999.

As a follow-up to last month's discussion of a permanent base on the Moon, today we commemorate the tragic events of September 13, 1999, which saw the Moon permanently leave Earth's orbit following a catastrophic explosion at the nuclear waste disposal site located on the Moon's dark side.  Sadly, the 311 personnel of Moonbase Alpha were lost in the accident.

Of course, this is all in reference to Space 1999, a British-Italian* science fiction collaboration which debuted in 1975 and ran for two seasons.  The series was the culmination of a long series of increasingly sophisticated SF-action programming created by the legendary partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who were best known for their Supermarionation** children's shows such as Fireball XL-5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.  In 1960, they produced UFO, their first live action series, and wrote and produced a full length film, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, in 1969.

Space 1999 offers what is probably the most detailed view of a lunar station in television or movies, and, in its way, it's a fairly well thought out view.  I rewatched the first episode as part of my research for this posting, and I have to say that it all seemed very logical in terms of how the base was set up.  I haven't seen any sort of preliminary plans for the permanent base planned as part of the Artemis program, but NASA could do worse than to take a look at Moonbase Alpha for ideas as to how to put together a lunar colony.

Alpha is made up of a combination of surface and underground structures arranged in an open wheel system, and split into four levels, most of which are underground.  The various sections of the base are connected by a network of travel tubes, which are rather like horizontal elevators.

For aerial transportation, they rely upon zero-G lifters – called Eagles** in homage to the Apollo 11 lander – which utilize a modular system to add medical, cargo or living space to the basic Eagle superstructure, a concept that the Andersons introduced in the Thunderbird series. In addition to surface landing stages and docking tunnels, the Eagle fleet is stored and maintained in underground hangars accessed by elevator platforms. Surface travel relies upon six-wheeled moon buggies and a variety of specialized vehicles.

The base, which is powered by four fast breeder fusion reactors and a solar energy plant, includes a hydroponics unit, research labs, recycling centre, two water purification plants, and a life support complex, all controlled from a central command section.  As is common with science fiction programs, Space: 1999 cheats the lunar gravity situation, in this case through artificial gravity generators that somehow create Earth-normal gravity within the base. (To the credit of the Andersons, they do their best to mimic the effects of lower gravity in outside surface shots.)

Personnel arriving on the base are provided with a commlock, a hand-held device that locks and unlocks doors, as well as acting as a communications device.  In addition, the base is equipped with communications posts, which contain internal communicators, clocks, and data displays.

Space: 1999 is also an unlikely cautionary tale regarding the potential use of the Moon as a dump for hazardous materials.  In the first episode, unknown radiation causes a massive nuclear waste disposal area to reach critical mass, resulting in a massive explosion that propels the Moon out of its orbit and out of the solar system. Ignoring the practicalities of shipping huge amounts of nuclear waste to the Moon, it’s certainly a strong argument for a self-sustaining base: you certainly wouldn’t want that sort of thing to happen if you were still relying on weekly food shipments from Earth.

- Sid

* I gather that, to the educated eye, the base's decor is a catalogue of modern Italian furniture design.

** If you're not familiar with the camp appeal of the Supermarionation shows, you really need to see it to believe it.  YouTube™ is full of examples.

*** There’s also a militarized version called the Hawk.