Status: Reality TV Show
The premise of
a new UK reality TV show, Space Cadets, will be to fool a group of contestants into believing they've been blasted into space. To achieve this goal the show's producers have outfitted an old airbase in the UK to look like a Russian base. As for simulating the space flight itself:
Their shuttle will be a Hollywood creation, made originally for the film Space Cowboys. A giant custom-built screen positioned just outside the shuttle will, it is hoped, provide the illusion of a view of Earth from space including a hurricane over Mexico and a glimpse of the UK on one day when cloud cover parts... The producers will not have to worry about recreating weightlessness because they are being “sent” 62 miles (100km) to Near Space, not Deep Space, where the sensation occurs.
It's hard to imagine anyone falling for this prank, no matter how high-quality the custom-built screens outside the fake shuttle are. But it does remind me of the theory propounded by the
Man Will Never Fly Society, whose members insist that mankind has never built a machine capable of flight:
Little do "plane" passengers realize that they are merely boarding Greyhound buses with wings, and that while aboard these winged buses, given the illusion of flight when cloud like scenery is moved past their windows by stagehands in a very expensive theatrical performance.
Comments
It's true purpose is revealed in its motto: "Birds fly, Men drink!"
Don't know why, but the old home state seems to be a hotbed for this kind of thing; Annual Morehead convention of the Bald is beautiful society. (Headquarters on Bald street, of course!) http://www.2camels.com/festival144.php3 ,the International Hollering contest at Spivy's Corners, which also designated itself the official greeting site for Skylab when it returned to Earth. (Unfortunately, Skylab chose the Aussie Outback for its return site instead.)
Heck, even my home town celebrates De-Rail-A-Bration, to honor those brave vandals who stole the train tracks running through downtown back in 1926! http://www.dgdc.org/derailabration.html
And this is just the short list off the top of my head!
So the moral is: If it sounds silly and came from NC, it's probably supposed to be silly!
(Kinda explains Jesse Helms, don't it?) };-)
There are at least 2 companies that provide zero gravity services. http://www.nogravity.com/home_full1.aspx is a company in Florida that has a specially modified Boeing 727 that flies in parabolic arcs and allows tourists to float around the cabin for about 30 seconds. There was even a 7-Up comercial filmed this way. Many universities conduct zero-g experiments using their services as well. Another company uses a Russian IL-76 to do the same thing. (http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/zgrav.htm)
In the movie Apollo 13, NASA's KC-135 "Vomit Comet" was used to film the weightless scenes. They let the film company build a movie set inside. It took about 600 parabolas to get all the footage needed. The crew and actors (Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton) are noted for now having more time in the zero gravity simulator than any of the real astronauts.
Personally, I cannot beleieve that they are promoting this before taping it.
I will readily admit I did not read the whole article. However weightlessness can occur in "Near Space". Like I said, it can occur in a falling elevator. Scientists and astronauts regularly experience it in jet planes for training and experimentation. Conversly, near normal gravity can be experienced in "Deep Space". If you could hover 1000 miles above the earth, you would feel almost the same gravity as you would on the surface.
Your point about promoting it before taping is a valid one though.
A good idea for a sequel would be to show a film of the earth exploding on the film and then 'maroon' the people on a 'strange planet' and let them start a new society.
Hah! Tell that to the people who fall out of planes and go SPLAT.
> "Near Space" or not doesn't matter, because they
> admit that 20% of the information they're giving
> the "cadets" is bunk.
They could very much tell the cadets as part of the bunk that the shuttle is fitted with gravity plates that generates an artificial field of gravity to keep them floating around. All space ships in SF movies have them, why not just throw it in with the bunks.
> I wonder if the show's producers are leaving
> themselves open to being sued for fraud or
> something similar by the unsuspecting
> "astronauts"?
Well, the article states that they do have quite a large sum of money lined up for the participants after the hoax ends or if the filming has to stop if the entire thing falls apart. So they probably have their asses covered (of course, 5000 quids a day - the participants would be wise to play along until the end even if they figured out the hoax, just to rake in the major moolah). You could freaking buy a nice SUV just by staying on the show for a few days.
> Yea and if this "theory" is true, how come you
> see the damn things flying in the sky all the
> time?!
Maybe it's a government cover up for some rare kind of flying fish that the military scientists created and it went wrong 😉
Still, it doesn't explain for other countries. We dont have greyhound buses over here - :D . And It did actually took me to my destination in one third the time it took to get there by car.
ive experienced things that havnt felt anything like i thought they would, maybe they could put it down to that
plus they used a plane on the US version of biggest loser that causes weightlessness
So what about the planes that hit the twin towers? Where they just an illusion? Ask the victims of that day.
I watched the first episode last night and it is obviously a fix up to see if they can fool the public.
less than subtle hints dropped all through the program about how most people are sugesstable and that people beleive what the majority beleive.
it was so badly done its almost insulting.