My Daily Reminder For This Month

Z is for Zero-X

Zero-X is the first manned spacecraft to land on Mars. It uses two separate lifting bodies as wings whilst in the Earth's atmosphere, allowing the craft to take off and land from a runway like a conventional aircraft. One in the upper atmosphere, these detach and return to Earth, as the ship heads off.

The Martian Exploration Vehicle (MEV) at the front of the craft is the ship's main control centre, which detaches on arrival at Mars, leaving the main body (and one astronaut) in orbit. The MEV then lands, using extendable caterpillar tracks to travel on the rocky surface.

The Zero-X appeared in two Gerry Anderson productions - the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go and the 1967 TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

"Zero X launch" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zero_X_launch.jpg#/media/File:Zero_X_launch.jpg

Y is for Yamato

It's the year 2199, and an alien race is raining radioactive meteorites onto the Earth, rendering the planet's surface uninhabitable and forcing the population underground. All seems lost... until a discovery gives mankind one further slim chance to save the planet. All efforts go into restoring the hull of a battleship that was sunk during World War II. This becomes the Space Battleship Yamato, and supplemented with the installation of a new type of propulsion system - the wave motion engine. The ship then sets off on its journey to the planet Iscandar -  there's a device there that can heal the ravaged Earth...

Space Battleship Yamato ( 宇宙戦艦ヤマト ) is a Japanese science fiction anime series. The name of the ship may be more familiar to US and UK audiences as it was also used as the name of one of the Enterprise's sister ships in Star Trek: The Next Generation (NCC-1305-E).

X is for X-Wing

The Incom T-65 X-wing starfighter is the primary interceptor and dog-fighter of the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic. Each X-wing is equipped with four laser cannons and a pair of proton torpedo launchers. The fighter has two flight modes: one where the wings are flat and another when they are expanded into attack position, making an X-shape and thus giving the wing-tip laser cannons a larger fire area.

Star Wars is an epic SF franchise, created by George Lucas in 1977. The first film in the series became a worldwide phenomenon, and five further films were released - all became box office successes. A further film is due to follow at the end of this year...

W is for Winnebago (Eagle 5)

An unusual one, this. This spacecraft is in fact a 1986 Winnebago Chieftain 33 with wings attached, forming the 'Eagle 5' spacecraft. It comes complete with a periscope, secret hyperjets and an infrared scanner.

Spaceballs is a 1987 comedy film, co-written and directed by Mel Brooks. Essentially a parody of the original Star Wars trilogy, it also made references to the Alien and Planet of the Apes films.

V is for Valley Forge

Picture this: all plant life on Earth has become extinct. A few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes - attached to a fleet of American Airlines space freighters, outside the orbit of Saturn. One of these ships is the Valley Forge. Unexpectedly, they receive orders from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes (with nuclear charges), returning the freighters to commercial service.

After four of the six domes are jettisoned and blown up, one Valley Forge crewman rebels...

Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally-themed SF film,  directed by Douglas Trumbull.

U is for United Planets Cruiser C-57D

The United Planets Cruiser C-57D is a saucer-shaped starship. A smaller dome under the main saucer houses the starship's faster-than-light drive engine and central gyroscopic landing pedestal. On landing, the saucer's gangway and two conveyor-loading ramps swing down at an angle from the underside hull, near the edge of the lower lens shape.

Forbidden Planet is a 1956 American film, and is said to be the first SF film in which humans are depicted travelling in a starship of their own creation. The film has been cited as one of the inspirations behind 'Star Trek' - indeed, C-57D inspired the look of the saucer section and interior design of the USS Enterprise.

T is for Thunderbird 3

Thunderbird 3 is International Rescue's single stage to orbit (SSTO) space vehicle, which is designed for space rescue, and also for maintaining the systems and crew of the space station (Thunderbird 5). The ship is is 87m long, with a 7m wide body and a 24m span (including engines). It uses chemical rockets for lift-off and boost, an ion drive for propulsion while in space and chemical retro rockets for reverse thrust in space. It could travel from Earth to within range of the Sun in 65 hours.

Thunderbirds was created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, and produced between 1964 and 1966 using marionette puppetry and scale-model effects. Two series of 50-minute TV episodes were filmed. A reimagined CGI series entitled 'Thunderbirds Are Go' has recently aired in 2015, giving us a further 26 20-minute episodes, and a second series is to follow. (Note: in the new series, the three protruding buttresses on Thunderbird 3 can fold out into grappling arms, which can be used to grab onto things in space. Useful! )

S is for Serenity

Set in the year 2517, Serenity is a Firefly class transport ship, a older model that is generally poorly regarded by many. The ship is referred to as a 'flying piece of gos se' (the phrase is Mandarin Chinese, and it's not very pleasant), however its crew regularly defend the reputation of the ship.

Firefly is an American space western SF series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. Regrettably, the TV series was cancelled after only eleven of the fourteen episodes (produced in 2002) were aired. The show continues to have a strong fan base, which led Whedon and Universal Pictures to produce 'Serenity' in 2005, a movie which continues the story of the series.

R is for Red Dwarf

Operated by the Jupiter Mining Corporation, the spaceship Red Dwarf, is vast - 6 miles (9.7 km) long, 4 miles (6.4 km) tall, and 3 miles (4.8 km) wide. Unfortunately, an on-board radiation leak of cadmium II kills everyone on board -  all except for the ship's lowest-ranking technician Dave Lister (Craig Charles), who is in suspended animation at the time, and his pregnant cat, Frankenstein, who is safely sealed in the cargo hold. What will happen to them once the radiation drops down to an acceptable level - some three million years later...

Red Dwarf  was merely another half-hour sitcom when it was first devised back in 1988 by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. The BBC series has since achieved a cult following, mixing influences from across the whole spread of the SF genre with British-style comedy and satire. The 11th and 12th series are now in pre-production and will air on Dave in the next few years.