Space Cadets!

[Guest]

From Media Guardian:

"Channel 4 is pulling an elaborate hoax with a new reality TV show in which a group of people believe they are in Russia training for a space mission - but are in fact having their every move filmed at a disused airbase in Britain.

Space Cadets, which launches on December 7 and is hosted by Johnny Vaughan, will follow a group of contestants who have applied to the fictional Space Tourism Agency.

They believe they are in Russia, undergoing intensive training to be blasted 100km into space, but in reality are at a former American airbase in the UK.

Starting with 100 applicants, the contestants will be whittled down to just four for the fictional mission - but one will be an actor.

They undergo intensive training, which every so often will get a little strange - a test of whether any of the participants have worked out it is all a hoax.

"We've taken a big risk with Space Cadets and we don't know who will have the last laugh - but we're hoping it's going to be a really entertaining and unique event in the schedule - a real treat in the run-up to Christmas," said Angela Jain, the Channel 4 commissioning editor for factual entertainment.

The Space Cadets set features a space shuttle, with a cockpit that has featured in films including Space Cowboys, Armageddon and Deep Impact.

There is also a mission control, an operations centre where the space cadets will be trained, barracks and a recreation room.

To keep up the illusion that the contestants are in Russia, the site has been kitted out with Russian fixtures and fittings - including more than 100 plug sockets, lightbulbs, drain covers and signs.

The space cadets will also use Russian teabags, cigarettes, DVDs, chocolate bars - and toilet paper.

Channel 4 and Space Cadets producer Zeppotron, a subsidiary of Endemol, the company behind Big Brother, have kept the project under wraps so as not to give away the hoax to the contestants.

Space Cadets has taken eight months to develop and has a production staff of more than 150. Thirty-four cameras will film the contestants 24 hours a day.

Space Cadets is to run on Channel 4 at 9pm every night from Wednesday December 7, for 10 days, with a live 60-minute show each night hosted by Vaughan.

Channel 4's digital service E4 will carry round the clock live streaming of the space cadets from December 11.

E4 is also to broadcast a daily spin-off show, Space Cadets: the Satellite Show, nightly at 10pm, presented by Alex Zane.

Space Cadets fans can follow the show via Channel 4's website and news stories and video highlights will also be available on mobile phones."

[UKSexCash]

Heard about that on the Radio earlier. Sounds very interesting!

[Guest]

More info from IOL:

"A new reality TV show is aiming to pull off the biggest hoax in TV history - by persuading a group of Britons that they have been blasted into space.

The new Channel 4 series Space Cadets has been under wraps since the idea first came about 18-months ago.

Nine people will be told they are set to visit the final frontier as space tourists and that in preparation they will undergo intensive training in Russia courtesy of the Space Tourism Agency of Russia, but in reality the groups will be “trained” for space in a disused airbase in a secret location in the UK.

Unbeknown to them, 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 launch sound has been created by a Hollywood sound specialist while the shuttle will tip and rock in the process.

Channel 4 admits that the joke could be on them if the participants, who are currently being selected from a group holed up in a secret location with no contact with the outside world, cotton on to the stunt.

Three actors have been placed in the group and will be able to report back on whether there are any suspicions.

The final contestants were chosen because they tended not to ask questions, and showed the psychological trait of "suggestibility" during psychological testing.

Participants answered an advert for “thrill-seeking” members of the public to take part in a new TV show.

In order to convince them that they are going to Russia for a fortnight’s training, they will be taken on a helicopter night flight.

But in reality they will fly for hours around the UK, on a carefully mapped flightpath over the sea and unpopulated areas so that they do not recognise anything.

Programme-makers have had to make meticulous changes to ensure their actual destination, the disused military base in the UK, resembles Star City, the cosmonaut training centre in Russia.

Every plug socket, manhole cover and lightbulb has been replaced with the Russian version, and even the smell of cooked cabbage will be introduced.

During their training, 20% of what the participants learn will be fiction and 80% real in preparation for the experiments they will conduct while “orbiting” the Earth.

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.

Channel 4 took a real astronaut inside the fake shuttle, who told them it looked like the real thing. The cadets will lift off horizontally as on some other space tourist missions.

Programme-makers have created “a cosmos” with the help of Imax technology, but they admit the cadets “may go up there and just say ‘that doesn’t look real’ and have to come back down again”.

The show, presented by Johnny Vaughan, has been created by Endemol, the company behind Big Brother.

Channel 4’s factual entertainment commissioning editor Angela Jain said: “We’ve taken a big risk with Space Cadets, and we don’t know who will have the last laugh.

“But we’re hoping it’s going to be a really entertaining and unique event in the schedule – a real treat in the run-up to Christmas.”

Julian Bellamy, head of factual entertainment, said: “We think this is exactly the sort of thing Channel 4 should be doing.

“We are trying to pull off the biggest practical joke in TV history by convincing them that they will be Britain’s first space tourists.”

Programme chiefs dismissed fears that the contestants could sue as a result of being made the butt of the joke, describing it as “light-hearted fun”.

Sky One recently paid out to contestants of its show Something About Miriam after they threatened legal action for being filmed wooing a pre-operative transsexual they thought was a woman.

Described as a Candid Camera live in space, the cadets will receive £5,000 (€7,300) for every day they spend in “orbit”, but they will not know about the money until the end.

Four of the final line-up will be selected to go on the first “space flight”, including one of the three actors, and more than one flight could take place.

Admitting that the “whole thing could blow at any moment”, the channel has got a stand-in schedule lined up just in case.

The nightly 10-day series begins on December 7 at 9pm."

[Shandy McAndy]

Ive just read all you wrote. This is gonna be huge, certainly nothing like this has ever been done before

[Guest]

Or it will all turn out to be a huge mess.