pace Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets', to be broadcast on BBC

[Whitters]

Shortly after ESA astronaut Pedro Duque returned from the Cervantes Mission to the International Space Station, ESA's Mission Control Centre in the Erasmus User Centre at ESTEC, Noordwijk, was cleared to make way for a TV production team. For eleven days in November 2003, the User Centre became the setting for the new BBC drama-documentary 'Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets', to be broadcast on BBC TV this week.

More at:
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMRO81A90E_UnitedKingdom_0.html

[Rick]

Saw last night's episode. I've come to the conclusion that docu-drama is one of the worst formats for imparting knowledge that the TV industry has cooked up recently. Things get over-dramatized, and the science gets lost, but the characters are so one-dimensional that the drama counts for nothing. This one was no better than any of the others.

The follow-on programmes after it on BBC4 (including an extended Sky at Night) were much better than the flagship...

[Ian]

I didn't take such a dim view myself. Although the science was questionable at times (such as the size of the boosters to get off of Venus for example), I felt it did a better job of conveying what we're missing as the human race. If we'd continued to push after the moon shots and had not suddenly adopted a bubble wrapped kindergarten approach to safety, the fantasy it showed would be reality.
Then we'd have lots more programmes on the TV where the science of our star system really is known rather than guessed. Even if those guesses are made by some *seriously* smart people.
Of course the biggest omission what the gattling gun that should be fitted to every lander. I thought the documentary Armageddon justified it's existence tenfold.

[Rick]

The follow-on "how we made it" programme actually tried to explain some of the reasoning behind the effects in some of the shots. That explanation was lacking in the main programme, and they never did try to explain the rockets...

[Rick]

...and the "interactive" extra after Sunday's showing was also interesting, though in a different way. It ended with a short live interview with the current ISS crew.