Space 1999 Moonbase Technical Operations Manual

[Blackstar]

New book coming out. They are taking orders now, should ship by November/December. Some nice graphics.

https://shop.gerryanderson.com/

https://shop.gerryanderson.com/products/moonbase-alpha-technical-operations-manual-standard-and-special-edition#product__main-accordion-1

[SimonFD]

I've been waiting for this book for over 40 years!

I'll have to think about it... 

[Blackstar]

I've been waiting for this book for over 40 years!

I'll have to think about it... 

It used to be about the future. Now it's historical.

[Steve G]

There are two 1970s series I would love to see a reboot. Of course, Space 1999, and The Starlost. Both were great concepts but not-so-well executed. The Starlost is a brilliant concept but underfunded. Space 1999, well, Barbara Bain was too robotic, and they got rid of Barry Morse after Season 1. Season 2 they brought in Fred Freiberger as producer. He's the same guy that destroyed Star Trek as producer of Season 3.

With today's much higher production and special effects, both series having a reboot would be great.

[demorcef]

I have never heard of The Starlost before! The plot description on Wikipedia is AMAZING! I will have to see if I can find episodes anywhere.

[webdan]

There are two 1970s series I would love to see a reboot. Of course, Space 1999, and The Starlost. Both were great concepts but not-so-well executed. The Starlost is a brilliant concept but underfunded. Space 1999, well, Barbara Bain was too robotic, and they got rid of Barry Morse after Season 1. Season 2 they brought in Fred Freiberger as producer. He's the same guy that destroyed Star Trek as producer of Season 3.

With today's much higher production and special effects, both series having a reboot would be great.

Agree 100%. Just happened to google something about Space: 1999 just the other day, go figure.

Re The Starlost - Some are on YouTube. Grew up with it myself.

There are connections to 2001

Edit: Merged posts

[Blackstar]

I have never heard of The Starlost before! The plot description on Wikipedia is AMAZING! I will have to see if I can find episodes anywhere.

I have never heard of The Starlost before! The plot description on Wikipedia is AMAZING! I will have to see if I can find episodes anywhere.

You will not like it. It had zero budget and looks it. It also had a really convoluted trip to the screen. Harlan Ellison was hired on as a lead writer and ended up in a huge dispute with the producer. Ellison was always cantankerous, but his account of what happened is probably much more right than wrong. He thought he was signing up for a well-funded project that would have good production values and experienced people, and then found himself working with people who had no clue what they were doing. (I think he thought he would be working in London and ended up working in Toronto.) The whole thing just sort of collapsed.

I don't think that the concept would work today. The idea of the "space ark" or generational ship was common in sci-fi in the 1950s-1970s. But it just seems like a totally worn-out idea now.

[Blackstar]

There are two 1970s series I would love to see a reboot. Of course, Space 1999, and The Starlost. Both were great concepts but not-so-well executed. The Starlost is a brilliant concept but underfunded. Space 1999, well, Barbara Bain was too robotic, and they got rid of Barry Morse after Season 1. Season 2 they brought in Fred Freiberger as producer. He's the same guy that destroyed Star Trek as producer of Season 3.

There was an effort a few years back to revive Space 1999. It collapsed.

https://thespacereview.com/article/2040/1

I don't see how it could actually work. When the show was on, 1999 was nearly a quarter-century away; now it's 20 years in the past. Do you change the name? (The last reboot effort was to change it to "Space 2099.") So many reboots are based on nostalgia among a certain age demographic, but changing the name undermines that nostalgia factor, and the age demographic for that show is not the one that advertisers care about. I'm pretty sure that's why the reboot effort fell apart. I can imagine a studio exec asking "What is your audience?" and the reply "60-year-old white males" is not the kind of answer that gets shows made.

Also, the concept was wacky and nonsensical. The show's strength was its models and design ethos, not the premise or stories.

[webdan]

Sadly, popular sci-fi TV shows usually return as feature movies with dismal results *cough, thunderbirds, cough*.

I believe The Starlost's "Earthship Ark" was also modelled on Trumbull's design for Silent Running.

[Blackstar]

Sadly, popular sci-fi TV shows usually return as feature movies with dismal results *cough, thunderbirds, cough*.

I believe The Starlost's "Earthship Ark" was also modelled on Trumbull's design for Silent Running.

Trumbull was a producer on the show. He was supposed to provide a new filming technology that would allow actors to move through a set that was actually a model filmed with another camera, sort of like "the volume" technology used on The Mandalorian. It did not work right. The budget also got chopped.

The premise of the show was similar to the "wandering hero" theme of a lot of shows in the 1970s where the lead character wanders from adventure to adventure and encounters new groups of people. Science fiction shows adopted that theme in the 1970s as well and there are a bunch of examples (for instance, "The Incredible Hulk" or "Logan's Run" the TV series, or a couple of attempts by Gene Roddenberry--wandering through a post-apocalyptic Earth popped up in quite a few shows). For The Starlost, they were going to wander through a spaceship.

[Star One]

Sadly, popular sci-fi TV shows usually return as feature movies with dismal results *cough, thunderbirds, cough*.

I believe The Starlost's "Earthship Ark" was also modelled on Trumbull's design for Silent Running.

I thought the new Thunderbirds was great, certainly somewhat better than the revived Captain Scarlet.

[webdan]

Sadly, popular sci-fi TV shows usually return as feature movies with dismal results *cough, thunderbirds, cough*.

I believe The Starlost's "Earthship Ark" was also modelled on Trumbull's design for Silent Running.

I thought the new Thunderbirds was great, certainly somewhat better than the revived Captain Scarlet.

Sorry, I was thinking of the 2004 live action version.

But thanks, as I will now have to watch "Thunderbirds Are Go".

[dgmckenzie]

I liked the New Captain Scarlet enough to buy it :-)

Hate the look of the new Thunderbirds, but Gerry was not involved, or the movie AFAIK.

[Star One]

What I liked about Thunderbirds Are Go is it wasn’t just CGI. Though the ‘puppets’ were CGI all the vehicles were physical models.

[MATTBLAK]

Ah! If only there were a real 'Moonbase Alpha'... A man can certainly dream. And I still wonder why the horizontal configuration of the 'Eagles' aren't being copied in the real world. Probably because they make too much sense.

[Blackstar]

Ah! If only there were a real 'Moonbase Alpha'... A man can certainly dream. And I still wonder why the horizontal configuration of the 'Eagles' aren't being copied in the real world. Probably because they make too much sense.

There are no fuel tanks on the Eagles. They don't really need to worry about center of gravity or other pesky aspects of physics.

[MATTBLAK]

There are fuel tanks on the Eagle - there are 'blueprints' published -but because they are supposed to use very hand-wavingly high Isp and efficient fusion engines; the fuel is heavily compressed Deuterium and in small-ish fuel tanks which are near the tail section and also in the outboard pods that the landing gear protrudes from.

[LittleBird]

I have never heard of The Starlost before! The plot description on Wikipedia is AMAZING! I will have to see if I can find episodes anywhere.

[...]

I don't think that the concept would work today. The idea of the "space ark" or generational ship was common in sci-fi in the 1950s-1970s. But it just seems like a totally worn-out idea now.

Nice twist on it in the BBC's series Out of the Unknown in the mid 60s, which adapted "13 to Centaurus" by J G Ballard. Can be found on a well done BFI 7 disc DVD set  and, er, elsewhere online ...

Was also interested to see  a recent sf reading group about worldships etc: https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2019/12/18/thirteen-to-centaurus-by-j-g-ballard/

[Blackstar]

I have never heard of The Starlost before! The plot description on Wikipedia is AMAZING! I will have to see if I can find episodes anywhere.

[...]

I don't think that the concept would work today. The idea of the "space ark" or generational ship was common in sci-fi in the 1950s-1970s. But it just seems like a totally worn-out idea now.

Nice twist on it in the BBC's series Out of the Unknown in the mid 60s, which adapted "13 to Centaurus" by J G Ballard. Can be found on a well done BFI 7 disc DVD set  and, er, elsewhere online ...

Was also interested to see  a recent sf reading group about worldships etc: https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2019/12/18/thirteen-to-centaurus-by-j-g-ballard/

I was about to type "I bet somebody has compiled a list of generation ships in sci-fi" when I decided to type that into Google, and here's a list:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/14992.Interstellar_Ark_novels

There are some more in the comments section there.

It just really strikes me as an idea that eventually burned itself out by the 1970s. But I have not looked at the list to see how often it appeared in later years.

[sanman]

There are two 1970s series I would love to see a reboot. Of course, Space 1999, and The Starlost. Both were great concepts but not-so-well executed. The Starlost is a brilliant concept but underfunded. Space 1999, well, Barbara Bain was too robotic, and they got rid of Barry Morse after Season 1. Season 2 they brought in Fred Freiberger as producer. He's the same guy that destroyed Star Trek as producer of Season 3.

With today's much higher production and special effects, both series having a reboot would be great.

Actually, Barry Morse himself left before Season 2, because of the awful changes proposed  by Freiberger and higher-ups.

Tip: Morse does even appear in an episode of the Starlost (I'll let others guess which one)

Bain was reserved, but I thought her Helena was acceptable. I really liked Martin Landau as Koenig, because his leadership style was more on the philosopher side of the warrior-philosopher balance, as compared to Shatner's Kirk. Like Shatner & Nimoy, both Landau & Morse had a nice rapport onscreen.

I've got to say that I really loved the whole aesthetic of Space:1999 (minus the Freiberger monster-movie/disco-era changes) They really built on the Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey look, and took it further.

The Eagles are of course the masterpiece of the show's sci-fi design artistry.
Was there any episode where we get to see the command module detach from the rest of the spacecraft?