Space Patrol (1962 TV Series) - The Science

The Science

Whereas Gerry Anderson had a rocket ship in Fireball XL5 that could travel to planets around other stars as though they were just a few million miles away (a rocket ship is limited in that it forms an explosive force which is contained and then sent off in one direction so the ship travels in another direction. If the force is too much, no metal will hold it and the ship will blow up, so imposing a strict limit on how fast a rocket can accelerate) and people using oxygen pills to survive unprotected in the vacuum of space (which would suck their blood out through their skin and the air from their lungs as well as popping their eyes), Space Patrol was better up on science. Trips to other planets in our solar system could take months and this was accomplished by the people in the Galasphere going into freezer units and being frozen in suspended animation for the trip. A robot would then take over (its movements were said to cost £2,000 a time rather than being just a puppet.) The zergon ray (faster than light) could be used from Earth to wake them up in an emergency.

On other planets (than Venus and Mars), they would use translators to talk to alien beings (at the time, even some serious scientists considered the possibility of life on Venus, Mars and maybe elsewhere). The Galasphere had a top speed of about a million miles an hour, using what would now be called "meson power" since we have discovered such particles exist but then would have probably been spelt with two "Z"s. This could not be used in atmosphere. It also found use for Gamma rays and 'yobba rays', allowing it to travel without any noticeable form of propulsion. The Galasphere also had a force field which would protect it from enemy missiles, and it also turned out to protect them from the mind control of the evil Neptunians.

The Galasphere was constructed of Plutonite, from Pluto. That was the furthest they normally travelled but after an accident they went way beyond that to a self-heated new planet which was full of giants who treated the Galasphere as a toy. Another time, an alien from Alpha Centauri visited them and installed a device which allowed the Galasphere to travel faster than light (at which point it vanished). They had their adventure twenty five trillion miles away and then returned to Earth, and just made it, with the Galasphere disintegrating under the strain of such travel, just as they left it.

Read more about this topic:  Space Patrol (1962 TV series)

Famous quotes containing the word science:

    Science, unguided by a higher abstract principle, freely hands over its secrets to a vastly developed and commercially inspired technology, and the latter, even less restrained by a supreme culture saving principle, with the means of science creates all the instruments of power demanded from it by the organization of Might.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    In the new science of the twenty-first century, not physical force but spiritual force will lead the way. Mental and spiritual gifts will be more in demand than gifts of a physical nature. Extrasensory perception will take precedence over sensory perception. And in this sphere woman will again predominate.
    Elizabeth Gould Davis (b. 1910)