Proving that the space race didn't end with the Cold War, television production companies in the United States, Great Britain and Germany are scrambling to be the first to launch winning reality-TV contestants into orbit.
Indeed, next-generation reality TV is starting to look a bit like Star Trek: The Next Generation. Networks are announcing new programs that promise to take the popular primetime format one step beyond.
Unfortunately, a few logistical details – such as how, exactly, the contestants will be transported into space and where to put them when they get there – may make these planned programs more fantasy than reality for now.
You'll have to be satisfied with the likes of Temptation Island and The Mole for the time being. But just maybe – if you wish upon a star – we'll soon be blasting guys like Rich Hatch off our planet.
NBC has the first-mover advantage with this new twist on the genre. It said in September it was teaming up with the producers of last year's hit series Survivor to launch a civilian-in-space contest that would air in fall 2001.
This new "reality adventure series" promised to stick with Survivor's Darwinian process-of-elimination premise – except this time, the stakes would be sky-high.
Destination Mir would follow 12 or 13 American civilians through several weeks of grueling physical and psychological trials at a Russian cosmonaut training camp near Moscow. Each week, one unlucky contestant would be sent home.
The last remaining contestant would win a trip to space, traveling in style aboard a Soyuz spacecraft bound for the Mir Space Station. NBC planned to cover the winner's journey and space station visit, as well as his or her eventual return to Earth.
Of course, there's a glitch. While Destination Mir has all the makings of a millennial blockbuster, it's lacking one critical element: a destination.
A month after NBC announced a call for contestants, the Russians said they might retire the nearly 14-year-old space station, which had become too expensive to maintain.
The Russian Aviation and Space Agency and Mir's operator, RKK Energia, set March 6, 2001, as the day for administering a "killing pulse" to the trusty space pad, putting it out of orbit once and for all.
According to MSNBC, the producers of Destination Mir are now setting their sights on the International Space Station as an alternate landing strip. But the ISS won't be finished until at least 2006, and NASA said it won't consider having TV visitors until then.
Both NBC and the Mark Burnett Production company wouldn't comment on Destination Mir, saying that production of the series is not yet under way.
When announcing the show last September, however, NBCi president Edmond Sancti said, "We are excited to provide our members a unique chance to compete to take the ultimate trip to space and to offer TV viewers and Web users a compelling online destination to participate in this fascinating reality drama."
The network launched an Internet portal to tie in with the planned series, where it continues to pre-register potential contestants.
Germany may not have been a strong contender in the last space race, but German TV doesn't intend to be left behind in this one.
In December, the German television production company Brainpool TV announced it had already invested $7.5 million in a new series called Space Commander. Seven winners, one from each season, will be rocketed to the International Space Station between 2002 and 2008.
The casting call for hopeful space commanders will extend to five European cities this year. Six hundred from each country will battle it out in televised contests, and five finalists will be sent to a cosmonaut training camp in Moscow.
Each winner will spend eight days in space, an all-expenses-paid vacation that could cost as much as $20 million, according to a report on MSNBC.
Britain's BBC is reportedly close to signing a contract for a rocket-to-space program of its own, according to the British paper The Independent.
The Great Space Adventure would train contestants at an American space camp, where they would vie for a slot on one of the first commercial flights to space, around 2004. The BBC wouldn't comment on the program, since the contract still hasn't been signed.
Michael Porter, a professor of communications at the University of Missouri, said reality-based TV dramas, by putting "real people" in fantastic contexts, capitalize on the audience's natural voyeuristic tendencies.
"We love to see our heroes in jeopardy, and we love to be able to identify with them in their plight," Porter said. "The person who makes it up to space will represent all of us, our society's everyman." According to Porter, the winners of Destination Mir and other programs like it will be a source of national pride, just like John Glenn and Neil Armstrong.
But many media watchers are skeptical about the groundbreaking potential of space-based reality programs. Matthew Felling, media director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., couldn't help but suppress a yawn when asked about the new turn in reality-based programming. "By the time they get the winners into space, the reality TV fad may be history," Felling said.
In Felling's eyes, the success of these space-based reality programs depends on the quality of the cast, rather than on the particular narrative or contest. "These shows rely on viewers being able to identify with the cast, and that's why they're looking for Jane and Joe Schmo. But once they put the cast through cosmonaut training, they cease to be Jane and Joe Schmo, which makes the whole thing less interesting."
Compared to other reality TV shows such as MTV's The Real World and Fox's Temptation Island – which strands supposedly committed (but horny!) couples on a desert island with predatory singles – the new space-based series seem to be lacking a crucial component: sex. "Sex in space ... now that could get interesting," Porter said.
