Thursday, May 20, 2010

Earth to the Moon

I can't recall what episode of the early-1970s British television show UFO this scene is from but I really want that map detailing the flight path of objects between the earth and the moon. I don't know if the map is representative of actual space flights or was made specially as a background prop revealing SHADO operations but it would be cool either way.

6 comments:

  1. That episode is "Kill Straker" for what it's worth. The same set, Henderson's office, appears in other episodes. Here it is in another couple of stills:

    http://ufoseries.com/photos/hendersonAtDesk.jpg

    http://ufoseries.com/photos/hendersonFreeman.jpg

    I haven't been able to track down the original source...but based on my knowledge of Gerry Anderson, I'd bet anything it's a genuine chart that was borrowed for use as set dressing (possibly by UFO art director Bob Barr) and not something specially created for the show.

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  2. I believe that episode concerned the UFOs hiding in and around "space junk" - discarded satellites and rocket stages still in orbit. I think that was a map of all the major junk known to be still in orbit.

    SHADO was trying to get government funding to destroy all the junk so the UFOs couldn't use it. Which of course they did, proving SHADO right.

    But I always asked myself watching the show, wouldn't it have been cheaper to give the aliens transplant organ samples and let them clone their own instead of funding this MASSIVE program to destroy them?

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  3. Military Industrial Complex, penguin.

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  4. Wait a minute, did someone just outgeek me about UFO? Awesome.

    (But you know, if you try to apply the slightest bit of logic to the xenobiology of the series, the whole thing falls apart. The only way to make sense of it would be a surprise reveal that all the "aliens" we saw weren't extraterrestrial at all but abducted humans, and the whole thing about organ transplants was a massive feint to cover up their real activities.)

    Anyway, I wanted to share this link, because it seems like it might be the sort of thing you'd like to see, and there's no e-mail address for Sleestak:

    http://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2010/05/space-age-1959.html

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