From
the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, many cult-tv series involving space travel
predicted that man would, upon setting forth into the final frontier, establish
an important stepping stone.
That
stepping stone was a moon base, a fully-self-sufficient installation on the
lunar surface.
In
2012, Mitt Romney mocked Newt Gingrich for proposing a moon base, but on this
issue, I’m with Newt. Let’s have a moon base, and have one soon. The moon is our closest neighbor in the
stars, we’ve been there before, and it just seems natural to expand humankind
to that lonely natural satellite.
Until
that happens, however, we must content ourselves with the great fictional moon bases
of cult-television.
In
the 1964 Outer Limits episode, “Moonstone,” a moon base is the hub for
all the action when an alien stone -- possessing the intelligence of five
brilliant alien scientists -- is discovered by the crew of a lunar facility.
Set
in the year 2070, the Doctor Who (1963 – 1989) serial “The
Moonbase” finds the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companions
landing on the moon and at an international moon base, only to learn that the
villainous Cybermen have cast their metallic eyes upon it for invasion.
In
the 1970s, two beloved Gerry Anderson live-action productions very prominently
featured lunar bases.
In
UFO
(1970), SHADO established a base on the moon from which it could launch
missile-firing Interceptors so as to stop alien incursions. Many of the officers on the base were female,
and wore silver dresses and purple wigs for some unspecified reason. The commander of Moonbase late in the series
was one of SHADO’s first recruits, Nina Barry (Dolores Mantez). She replaced
Lt. Ellis in that role.
If
anything, Space:1999 (1975 – 1977) was even more “moon-centric,” as all
the action took place on Moonbase Alpha, a research hub for 311 scientists,
technicians and astronauts. Moonbase
Alpha’s other job was to monitor nuclear waste dumps, and the base was serviced
by a fleet of Eagle spacecraft. On September 13, 1999, the moon was blasted out
of Earth orbit, along with Alpha, sending its human crew into deepest space.
Another
British series, Moonbase 3 (1973), was set on a slightly more future date:
2003. The series ran for just six
episodes, and was an attempt to realistically depict life on such a
facility. In the series lexicon,
Moonbase 3 was the base for Europe, .although the United States also had a base
(Moonbase 1), as did The Soviet Union (Moonbase 2) and China (Moonbase 4). The
lead character in the series was Dr. David Caulder (Donald Houston), chief
director of Moonbase 3.
A
two-part episode during the last season of The Six Million Dollar Man (1973 –
1978) was called “The Dark Side of the Moon,” and was an adventure set on a
modern-day moon base.
Earth
as seen in The Super Friends cartoon of the 1970s also has a
multi-national moon base.
And
in 1991, a pilot program called Plymouth concerned the colonists
living on a moon base. Alas, it never
went to series.
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