Space: 1999 Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual

Story: A thorough, beautifully illustrated guide to Moonbase Alpha for new recruits and existing crew members alike, detailing the history of the lunar base (including the moon’s catastrophic departure from Earth orbit in 1999, and events since), technical specifications of Alpha’s stun guns, spacesuits, and its fleet of support vehicles including Eagles, Hawks, and other variants, and a complete directory/biography of Alpha’s command staff. Wait, where does Moonbase Alpha get new recruits so far from home? Have you been through a security checkpoint?

Review: The 1970s were the heyday of fan-produced material based on presumably inert IPs – countless in-universe Star Trek manuals and reference texts, and similar projects covering elements of Irwin Allen’s numerous genre TV series, or Gerry Anderson’s. Often these would be advertised in the pages of Starlog Magazine, though the relationship between not-quite-licensed products and magazine was a bit more symbiotic than was let on in some cases. One product of this not-really-licensed-and-yet-not-completely-unauthorized pipeline was the Moonbase Alpha Technical Notebook, written primarily by David Hirsch with contributions from fellow Starlog staff writer David McConnell, and artwork by Geoffrey Mandel and Anthony Frederickson, both of whom had contributed to unofficial Star Trek technical manuals long before becoming contributors to studio-produced Star Trek. Hirsch had also, in his capacity as a Starlog staff writer, assisted ITC in preparing their late ’70s/early ’80s package of syndicated “movies” created by splicing together pairs of otherwise disparate episodes of Space: 1999 and UFO. The chances that Gerry Anderson and his production staff didn’t know about the Technical Notebook hover somewhere around zero, but it wasn’t an officially blessed and licensed product, either. The Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual, a lavish coffee table book in a “widescreen” format, is very much as official as one can get – and, as much love as I have for fannish endeavours like its predecessor, it’s a gigantic improvement.

While it clearly uses some of the prior publication as a loose template, the Moonbase Alpha Technical Operations Manual is much glossier and features some absolutely stunning illustrations and CG renders, putting the entirety of Moonbase Alpha into a more plausible context. Considering that we’re talking about a show whose premise was under attack by no less a sci-fi authority than Isaac Asimov they day after it premiered, Space: 1999 definitely needs the assist in the plausibility department. An essay by Phil “The Bad Astronomer” Plait – in character as a Moonbase Alpha science crewmember who happens to have the same name – seeks to redress some of those infamous criticisms, in part by reminding the reader that Space: 1999 wasn’t hard science fiction, but rather a more metaphysical flavor of the genre that allowed for an unspecified “hand” guiding the moon on its journey. The manual does a fantastic job of connecting the dots, doing a bit of retconning, and making Moonbase Alpha seem like a real and tangible place. One example is explaining away the disappearance of the wonderful, multi-level Main Mission set after season one; we’re told that, after the numerous times in season one that the base came under attack, the decision was made to retreat to the original command center from the early days of Alpha, which had the virtue of not being an easily-targeted site at the very top of the very center of the base. Makes sense. (Designers of every Starfleet ship ever, pelase take note.)

There are also easter eggs aplenty; numerous mentions are made of an unspecified “Straker doctrine” that advocated for armed spacecraft from Earth, and one particularly impressive render accompanies text that the moon’s surface contains not just Moonbase Alpha, but “forgotten military bases” – and the illustration clearly shows a hanger of abandoned SHADO fighters from Space: 1999’s live-action, Gerry-Anderson-produced predecessor, UFO. For those of you who want an interconnected Gerry Anderson Cinematic Universe, there’s your lifeline; otherwise things are left vague enough that anyone with no knowledge of UFO will gloss over the fact that the Straker doctrine is named after the lead character from UFO. (Sorry, no mention of International Rescue.) Within series continuity, there are mentions of the fates of AWOL first-season characters, in line with previously published fiction, but not handing out enough information to spoil those novels. R.I.P., Victor Bergman.

The section of the book dealing with the show’s hardware is really the main attraction – the Eagle and all of its various configurations and offshoots are lavished with all the attention that fans of the iconic spacecraft could possibly want. I’ve long held the belief that, never mind Landau and Bain, the Eagle is real star of Space: 1999, and its single most enduring image. (It’s not for nothing that line art of an Eagle graces the book’s cover.) It still remains a stunningly plausible spacecraft design whose creators were clearly keeping the real hardware of space exploration in mind. Similar attention is given to the show’s stun guns and iconic orange spacesuits.

Anything a Space: 1999 fan could really want to know about the show’s settings and trappings can, in short, be found between these covers, and in glossy full color on massive pages. The Technical Operations Manual may not be cheap, but it’s a lovely visual treatment of a series that, in hindsight, may have had more thought put into it that some viewers gave it credit for.

A similar volume covering UFO is already in the works.

Year: 2021
Authors: Chris Thompson, Andrew Clements
Illustrators: Chris Thompson, Keith Young, Christina Logan, Catherine O’Kane
Publisher: Anderson Entertainment
Pages: 272