The Biggest Spaceship in Science Fiction

This Week in Classic Science Fiction

On September 13, 1999, Earth lost the Moon, at least according to "Space: 1999." When the series premiered in 1975, that date was nearly a quarter-century in the future. Today, it remains one of science fiction's more memorable dates that never happened.

In the opening episode, "Breakaway," humanity has stored enormous quantities of nuclear waste on the Moon. A dangerous reaction develops beneath the surface, and Nuclear Disposal Area Two explodes with enough force to blast the Moon out of Earth orbit. The catastrophe immediately cuts Moonbase Alpha off from Earth.

Commander John Koenig and the base's inhabitants are carried away with it. They do not launch into space, and they have no control over where they are going. Their home has suddenly become a wandering world.

Fans of the series came to know September 13 as "Breakaway Day," turning the fictional disaster into a real-world anniversary. The date also has a curious connection to the series because Barbara Bain, who played Dr. Helena Russell, was born on September 13.

The explosion did more than begin "Space: 1999." It transformed the most familiar object in Earth's night sky into one of science fiction's strangest spaceships.

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When the Moon Became a Spaceship

The largest spaceship in science fiction has no engines, no navigation system, and no pilot. It is 2,159 miles across, weighs roughly 81 quintillion tons, and was never meant to go anywhere.

That is the wonderfully strange idea at the center of "Space: 1999." Once the Moon begins wandering through space with Moonbase Alpha and its inhabitants aboard, it stops functioning merely as the setting for the series and becomes their ship.

The Moon as a Vessel

Science fiction usually makes its spaceships easy to recognize. They have engines, control rooms, airlocks, and crews, and somebody built them for the purpose of traveling through space.

The Moon obviously fails that test, but it performs the most basic job of any spacecraft. It carries people from one part of space to another while keeping them alive along the way.

The difference is scale. Instead of putting a protective hull around the travelers, "Space: 1999" gives them an entire world, with gravity beneath their feet, rock above their underground facilities, and far more room than any conventional starship.

That changes the way viewers think about the setting. Moonbase Alpha is not simply a colony left behind after a disaster. It is a community riding through space on a world that has become a means of transportation.

Moonbase Alpha as the Crew Compartment

A moon is not much of a spaceship if its passengers cannot survive the trip. That is where Moonbase Alpha becomes important.

Alpha provides the functions normally built into a large science-fiction spacecraft. It has living quarters, laboratories, medical facilities, communications equipment, and a command center, so Commander John Koenig and his people live much like the crew of a conventional starship.

The Eagle Transporters complete the arrangement. They allow the Alphans to leave their wandering home, investigate nearby planets and spacecraft, and return to Alpha, which effectively makes the Moon the mothership and the Eagles its shuttlecraft.

This gives "Space: 1999" a familiar science-fiction structure in a very unfamiliar form. Instead of a starship carrying smaller landing craft, the series gives us a drifting celestial body carrying a permanent base and a fleet of small ships.

The idea also helps explain why the Eagle Transporters are so important to the series. They are not merely vehicles used for dramatic action. They are the only practical way for the Alphans to interact with whatever the Moon happens to encounter.

A Ship Nobody Can Steer

There is one major piece of equipment missing from this enormous spacecraft. No one aboard can steer it or choose where it will go next.

That separates "Space: 1999" from most space adventures. Captain Kirk can order the Enterprise toward a planet, change course to investigate a distress signal, or head for home, while Koenig can issue plenty of orders without ever changing the direction of the Moon.

This creates an unusual kind of commander. Koenig is responsible for hundreds of lives aboard a vessel over which he has almost no control, and he can decide how the Alphans respond to danger without deciding which dangers they will encounter.

The people of Alpha are therefore both crew and passengers. They run their home, maintain its systems, and defend it, but they are also along for the ride.

That distinction gives the series a different kind of tension. The Alphans can prepare, repair, investigate, and fight, but they cannot simply turn away from trouble. Whatever lies ahead is coming whether they want it or not.

Exploration Without a Mission

"Star Trek" famously sends its characters into space to explore. "Space: 1999" turns that idea around by making exploration something that happens to the Alphans rather than something they choose.

The people of Alpha do not go looking for strange new worlds. Strange new worlds find them because a planet, spacecraft, or mysterious phenomenon happens to cross the Moon's path.

That changes the purpose of exploration. The Alphans do not investigate merely because humanity wants to understand the universe, but because the next planet might contain something that can kill them, save them, or give them a new home.

This also gives the series a melancholy quality that separates it from more optimistic space adventures. The Enterprise has a mission and a destination, while the Alphans have a direction but no idea where it leads.

For them, every encounter carries a second question beyond simple curiosity. The Alphans have to ask whether what they have found might finally offer a way to stop wandering. That possibility gives their journeys a sense of urgency that ordinary exploration stories often lack.

The Biggest Ship in Science Fiction

The physics behind "Space: 1999" do not survive much examination. An explosion powerful enough to send the Moon wandering among the stars creates rather more problems than the series cares to address, but the premise still works as a storytelling device.

The writers can carry the same community into contact with new planets, civilizations, mysteries, and dangers without putting everyone aboard a conventional starship. The Moon itself provides the journey and gives the series a structure that is both simple and unusual.

That may be the cleverest part of the idea. The people of Moonbase Alpha never designed their vessel, built it, launched it, selected its destination, or learned how to steer it.

They simply discover that the ground beneath their feet has become a spaceship, and from that point on, the Moon is no longer just their home. It is the thing carrying them into the unknown.

"Space: 1999" Trivia

1. The Eagle Transporter grew out of designer Brian Johnson's earlier work on the Moonbus for "2001: A Space Odyssey." He had been thinking about a more skeletal, practical-looking lunar craft years before "Space: 1999" existed.
2. The original Eagle filming model was 44 inches long and took about two months to build. Its modular design helped make the ship look more like working machinery than a polished fantasy spacecraft.
3. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were married in real life and had already starred together in "Mission: Impossible" before becoming Commander Koenig and Dr. Helena Russell.
4. Brian Johnson later noticed pieces of the Eagle's visual style turning up in the Star Destroyers of "The Empire Strikes Back." Johnson himself later worked on that film.