Okay,
but what the heck is Moon Zero Two, already? A death
ray? A state of the art space station? Some secret
government project involving James May and a nuclear-powered Renault
Reliant? Sorry, none of those. It's the call sign of our
hero's clapped-out spaceship that the authorities are trying to
ground because it has the safety rating of a paper boat in a hurricane.
As the name implies, she's a Moon ferry; a specialised craft
intended for use in the airless, low-gravity environment of the Moon
to service and salvage satellites and to carry passengers and
freight between the settlements on the lunar surface.
Unless it crashes, in which case you'd be killed
to death.
If
you look closely, you'll notice that Moon Zero Two bears a certain
resemblance to the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module or LEM, as it is
known to its friends. In fact, the resemblance is so strong
that it looks at first glance as if the film's model makers decided
to build a spaceship on the cheap by taking an Airfix model and
sticking a box in the middle. But on closer examination, you
can see that the details and proportions of Moon Zero Two and the
LEM don't match up, which suggests that what the modelers were
really doing was extrapolating what a 21st century
spacecraft would look like without straying too far from their
contemporary example. This makes sense when you think about
it, because the LEM is a shape that is pretty hard to get your mind
around, but it is well known. Coming up with something
completely new would have introduced the dreaded "what the heck is
that?" factor, which wise filmmakers try to avoid.
Still, the basic layout of Moon Zero Two is both
practical and easy for an audience to grasp. On top, there is
the flight deck; in the middle, there's the passenger deck; and the
cargo deck makes up the bottom. It's all very cramped and
utilitarian and wouldn't look out of place inside the sort of cargo
planes that service remote locations in Alaska. Where it all falls down
is that the modelers have fallen for the mistake of every cinematic
rocket designer from Flash Gordon until today: There is no room
whatsoever for any fuel to operate the thing.
Apparently, space travel is strictly a BYOB
affair.
If
you look closely, you'll notice that Moon Zero Two bears a certain
resemblance to the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module or LEM, as it is
known to its friends. In fact, the resemblance is so strong
that it looks at first glance as if the film's model makers decided
to build a spaceship on the cheap by taking an Airfix model and
sticking a box in the middle. But on closer examination, you
can see that the details and proportions of Moon Zero Two and the
LEM don't match up, which suggests that what the modelers were
really doing was extrapolating what a 21st century
spacecraft would look like without straying too far from their
contemporary example. This makes sense when you think about
it, because the LEM is a shape that is pretty hard to get your mind
around, but it is well known. Coming up with something
completely new would have introduced the dreaded "what the heck is
that?" factor, which wise filmmakers try to avoid.