BBC: Once Upon A Time in Space

[Blackstar]

Sergey Zalyotin, Gus Gardellini and Walt Anderson were three of the main subjects interviewed this week.

Yeah, I expected Anderson's name to come up. I've forgotten a lot of this, but Anderson went to prison for tax evasion in the mid-2000s, something that apparently surprised almost nobody who knew him. I heard stories from people about how in the 1990s he used to brag about having a lot of unpaid traffic tickets. He was apparently one of those people with an extreme libertarian attitude that government was illegitimate and therefore he did not have to obey the laws. And he was also pretty open about it too. And when he started funding MirCorp, he bragged about how they were going to stick it to NASA. But he also said a lot of things out loud, and eventually somebody with a badge heard about it.

I remember hearing an interview with him when he was in prison. After he had pled guilty, he was in prison and claimed he was innocent of the crimes he said he had committed. He was going to clear his name, etc.

[bobthemonkey]

Final episode airs tonight - should be the only substantially 'new' content, seemingly covering how NASA and Roscosmos continued to operate the ISS despite the war in Ukraine - specifically the invasion of Crimea in 2014.

[LittleBird]

If you’re not a U.K. TV licence payer then you can’t access some BBC material. That’s not parochialism but the funding model. Most BBC material gets sold abroad these days so you should be able to see it in due course (probably with adverts, which BBC viewers are spared).

You're correct - charging for access to intellectual property is not parochial. What's parochial is not giving someone who's willing to pay the opportunity to subscribe and just brushing them off with a "you're not cool enough to watch this" message. As chronically underfunded as the BBC is (if you believe their complaints) you'd think that they'd welcome new revenue streams instead of turning potential viewers away.

Er... Stuff takes time. You don't know if they are currently licensing it to a US provider. Maybe it will be available in the US in a month, or next year.

Indeed. The end credits say it was made by KEO films, for BBC, PBS and the Open University. So I would, er, watch this space ... (I'll get my coat, as we say here).

Have enjoyed it a lot-would watch pretty much any Chris Riley work.

[Blackstar]

Indeed. The end credits say it was made by KEO films, for BBC, PBS and the Open University. So I would, er, watch this space ... (I'll get my coat, as we say here).

The 4-part documentary on the Columbia accident was, I believe, a joint CNN/BBC production. Aired in the UK and then several months later appeared on CNN in the US.