2019 marks 50 years since we landed on the moon, but it’s also the 20th anniversary of a tragic space anniversary that has thus far gone unmentioned in the media.

This week marks twenty years since the moon broke free from its orbit, taking the crew of Moonbase Alpha on an interglalactic journey.  Nobody will forget that fateful morning, September 13, 1999, when nuclear waste stored on the moon triggered the fateful circumstance.

While we on Earth have had to contend with the consequences of catastrophic climate change and hysteria that caused the election of an insane reality TV star to the highest position in government, those 311 brave people on the moon have had to contend with even rougher hardships…except for the whole president thing, anyway.

This week we once again turn our video eye toward the best science fiction show with a really moronic premise ever…Gerry and Silvia Anderson’s Space: 1999.

The premise of Space: 1999 involved the folks on Moonbase Alpha (Remember that base we had on the Moon just two decades ago?).  The Earth had been storing its nuclear waste on the dark side of the Moon, where it blowed up…real good.   The force of the explosion sends the Moon right out of orbit, launching it into space like a giant spaceship, with Moonbase Alpha going along for the ride.

Ignoring the likelihood that such a cataclysm would not only kill everyone on the Moon, but also pretty much end life on Earth as we know it, the series was a lot a fun with sharp writing and a first-rate cast that included later OSCAR winner Martin Landau. We first ran the above video of the pilot five years ago, but it was paired with a couple of complete episodes from later in the series, which have since fallen victim to YouTube’s notorious copyright hook. Still, we must never forget the tragic events of September 13th, 1999, and endeavor to never ever again bury nuclear waste on the moon that isn’t there anymore.

Space: 1999 was a welcome lifeline for fans of science fiction on television in the mid-1970s. Back in the dark ages before Star Wars, good old-fashioned space opera was a rare sight on the small screen. Space:1999 was the first prime-time series set in outer space since Star Trek and Lost In Space had ended their runs in the previous decade. Space:1999 ran for two seasons, from 1975 to 1977 (back when 1999 seemed like a far-off future date), and spawned a ton of cool toys, comic books and action figures. Just like with Star Trek, the final season of Space: 1999 was produced by Fred Frieberger, as so it is rarely mentioned by fans of the show.