Da-da, Da, Da, Da-de-dit-de-da, da, dum, de, Da!

My sources inside NASA-JPL secured this for me today.

There is some great news out there for sci-fi and space fans today. On the one hand something fantastical and unrealistic yet tinged with hope that we will triumph even though the whole scenario is utterly implausible, impractical and as far away from reality as possible. And on the other hand a remake of Space 1999.

Yes NASA is refocusing its mighty bureaucratic army, skillful lobbyists, pork barrel warriors and some forgotten engineers on the dream of human space flight to the moon and beyond. The current plan, as reported in the ever excellent register here, is to establish some sort of manned presence beyond the orbit of the moon at Earth-Moon libration point 2 (EML-2 as it’s catchily known). EML-2 is a form of Lagrangian point which is a point of stability in an orbital system comprised of two bodies, one much larger than the other. Lagrangian points, in terms of earth-sun points are discussed here  for those of you with lots of time to kill. This is a massive step. Astronauts on this station, and I’m presuming it’s a station, NASA is very quiet on details so far, will be further away from home than any humans have been and much further away from help as the nearest gravity well is the very inhospitable moon. An EML-2 station would be on the far side of the moon and would require regular support flights for consumables and fuel (EML-2 isn’t quite as stable as the earth-sun L2 and would mean regular engine burns to maintain orbital position). The station would have to be supported by satellites in lunar orbit to maintain communications and the whole problem of crew retrieval and emergency access becomes vital. Basically we’ll need somewhere close for them to head for in case of trouble and as an alternative if something is up at the station whilst they are on the way. This means that if we have a station at EML-2 we’ll need a moon base as well. Moon Base Alpha since it’s the first one.

This appalling transparent segway leads me onto the meat of my post today, the proposed rebooting of Space 1999 as Space 2099. This endeavor is as fraught with risk and danger as putting a bunch of lads in a machine made to lowest bid price on the other side of the moon, just with a lot less cost and chance of death*.

For those of you who don’t know, the basic premise of Space 1999, was that as humanity expanded into space we’d established a large and very cool base on the moon, developed deep space capability, put all of our nuclear waste into a huge wheelie bin on the dark side of the moon, converted staple guns into laser pistols, invented space flares and best of all done all this with computers who doubled as interior design and didn’t need screens to interact, they just gave you receipts.

The plot, if you can call it that, is that the huge nuclear wheelie bin catches fire or something like that and blows up. The explosion is so excellent and huge that the moon is torn from orbit and thrown into Einstein-be-buggered interstellar flight, weekly adventures ensure as new planets and beasties are encountered, much xeno-nookie is had, evil is twarted using space flares, laser staplers and an endless supply of the coolest space ships ever, the eagles, are crashed, bashed, blown up and abandoned with much derring do. In other hands this pile of ole honk wouldn’t have lasted beyond the pitch meeting but with the Andersons at the helm and some seriously talented actors signed up the series went on for two series and about 35 episodes.

It also had the single best sci-fi disco theme tune ever recorded.

I can't see this turning out well. Roll on the Blakes-7 re-boot staring Vin Deisel & Chris Biggins

The re-boot is supposed to inject a degree of reality into this mess but retain the qualities of the original which made it so excellent. Lets be clear here, they couldn't make it less gritty and fantastical if they added tap dancing space marshall Gingerella and the pink Tutu-Dragons from planet WTF-4 fighting the Sherbert Hula-hoop Monsters from the Nebula-Unrealistica. So since they can’t get Martin Landau or the Andersons back and space disco seems to be out of fashion. I’m imagining the new Battlestar Galactica on the moon with space flares, staple lasers and the eagles. In fact the teaser posters have the very familiar shapes of the eagle control cabins in them, so that looks good. I can’t wait. As for the NASA thing. Dream on, faster than light moon bases and extraterrestrial how’s-your-father with sexy xeno-morphs is almost plausible in comparison

* though if it fails part of my soul will die of course.