Space: 1999
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50 free Space: 1999 trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few television shows have a premise as bold as this one: a lunar research base and everyone on it, torn away from Earth and sent drifting between the stars. Made in Britain in the mid-1970s with film-quality model work, the series still looks remarkable, and its mix of eerie mysteries and monster-of-the-week adventure has kept fans arguing ever since. This quiz covers both years of the show: the disaster that starts it all, the commander and his crew, the newcomers of the second year, the best-remembered episodes and the well-known faces who dropped in as guests. It also goes behind the scenes, to the studios, designers, composers and producers who shaped it. The questions suit anyone who watched the show first time round or found it later on disc or streaming. Casual viewers will find plenty they can reason out, and long-time fans will meet a few deep cuts.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Space: 1999, what explodes on the Moon's far side and hurls Moonbase Alpha out of Earth orbit?
Stored nuclear waste
Stored nuclear waste, dumped on the Moon by Earth, reaches critical mass on 13 September 1999. The blast works like a giant booster rocket, sending the Moon into deep space.
Q 02Space: 1999's two married American leads had earlier starred together in which CBS spy series?
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible had made the couple stars in America, so ITC insisted on casting them even though one producer wanted British actors.
Q 03David Prowse, who played the creature in Space: 1999's 'The Beta Cloud', wore the costume of which Star Wars character?
Darth Vader
Darth Vader was another part that hid Prowse's face. The episode's director had hired the former weightlifting champion after meeting him in Harrods.
Q 04Which science-fiction author said a blast able to shift the Moon, as in Space: 1999, would really blow it apart?
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov also found things to praise, saying the series showed movement in the Moon's low gravity accurately.
Q 05Which bird of prey gives its name to the transporter craft flown from Moonbase Alpha in Space: 1999?
Eagle
Eagle craft appeared on screen as a mix of full-sized props, photographic blow-ups and detailed scale models.
Q 06Space: 1999 creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were best known for which puppet series about a rescue organisation?
Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds made the Andersons world famous, and the Moonbase saga was the last series the couple produced together.
Q 07Which alien science officer, able to become any living creature, joined Moonbase Alpha in Space: 1999's second series?
Maya
Maya was devised to win back American viewers, and the promise of her arrival persuaded ITC to renew a series it had just cancelled.
Q 08Which American actor played Commander John Koenig, leader of Moonbase Alpha, in both series of Space: 1999?
Martin Landau
Martin Landau won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, almost twenty years after he first took command of the Moonbase.
Q 09Which country screened the world premiere of the British-made Space: 1999, before viewers in Britain saw it?
Australia
Australia's Seven Network got there first, then put the show on hiatus for a year partway through its run.
Q 10Fred Freiberger, who took over Space: 1999 for its second series, had produced the final season of which American show?
Star Trek
Star Trek's third and last season was Freiberger's. In Britain he pushed Moonbase Alpha toward faster, action-led stories.
Q 11Which actress played Dr Helena Russell, head of Moonbase Alpha's medical section, in Space: 1999?
Barbara Bain
Barbara Bain arrived with three consecutive Emmy Awards from her previous series, won in 1967, 1968 and 1969.
Q 12Moonbase Alpha in Space: 1999 sits inside which crater in the Moon's northern hemisphere?
Plato
Plato housed a scientific research centre of 311 people, all of them stranded when the Moon left orbit.
Q 13Which actor played Zantor, captain of the peaceful Kaldorians, in the Space: 1999 episode 'Earthbound'?
Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee had just finished playing the assassin Scaramanga on film, and he hated alien makeup that took a layer of skin off with it.
Q 21Which actor played Professor Victor Bergman in Space: 1999 but left after one series in a dispute over salary?
Barry Morse
Barry Morse, the relentless Lieutenant Gerard of The Fugitive, later claimed he was glad to leave the Moonbase behind.
Q 22The shape-shifting science officer of Space: 1999's second series comes from which planet, ruled by her father Mentor?
Psychon
Psychon is a ravaged world that Mentor hopes to restore with a biological computer powered by the minds of his captives.
Q 23Which veteran of British horror films played Raan, an alien anthropologist, in Space: 1999's 'Missing Link'?
Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing, Hammer's Baron Frankenstein and Van Helsing, was praised for lending the heavily made-up Raan real dignity.
Q 14Space: 1999 moved in secret one weekend from the threatened Elstree to which famous British film studio?
Pinewood
Pinewood became home after the secret weekend move, which got the production blacklisted by the unions.
Q 15Space: 1999 began as a sequel to Gerry Anderson's UFO, set on an enlarged Moonbase run by which secret organisation?
SHADO
SHADO and its commander Ed Straker were dropped when the sequel lost its backing, but the design work was reused for the new show.
Q 16Which episode of Space: 1999, written by George Bellak and directed by Lee H. Katzin, opened the series?
Breakaway
Breakaway overran its ten-day shoot by more than two weeks, and a two-hour first cut so alarmed ITC that it was reshot and trimmed to an hour.
Q 17Which actress guest-starred in Space: 1999's 'Guardian of Piri' before joining the regular cast for the second series?
Catherine Schell
Catherine Schell played the Guardian's eerie servant, then returned after The Return of the Pink Panther as an entirely different character.
Q 18In Space: 1999's 'Matter of Life and Death', which presumed-dead relative of Helena Russell reappears on a scout craft?
Her husband
Her husband, lost on a flight to Jupiter, comes back to warn the crew off a lush planet that proves to be made of antimatter.
Q 19Which English town, spotted on an M1 road sign, gave its name to a planet of ruling plants in Space: 1999?
Luton
Luton caught producer Fred Freiberger's eye on a motorway signpost, and he wrote the episode under the pen name Charles Woodgrove.
Q 20Which ITC chief insisted that Space: 1999 cast American leads to help sell the series to a US network?
Lew Grade
Lew Grade wanted a network sale so badly that he also required American writers and directors, yet no US network ever bought the show.
Q 24In which Space: 1999 episode is a lone survival ship sent away while a force field shields the base?
Black Sun
Black Sun spits the Moon out in a distant region of space, the show's answer to how it could ever reach other stars.
Q 25Which country's state broadcaster, RAI, co-produced the first series of Space: 1999 with Britain's ITC?
Italy
Italy's stake came with a promise to cast Italian actors, which is why Italian guest stars turn up in four late episodes.
Q 26Which actress guest-starred in Space: 1999 as Kara, a survivor aboard the vast derelict spaceship Daria?
Joan Collins
Joan Collins was already a science-fiction favourite, and one critic praised her performance in an episode he called a full-scale triumph.
Q 27Which chief pilot, played by Nick Tate, kept his place in Space: 1999's second series thanks to his fan mail?
Alan Carter
Alan Carter was due to be replaced by a new pilot until the producer saw how much mail the character received.
Q 28In Space: 1999's 'Journey to Where', a failed teleport to Earth strands three Alphans in which country's medieval past?
Scotland
Scotland in 1339 is no refuge: the laird of Clan MacDonald takes the travellers for plague carriers and orders them burned.
Q 29Which Nordic country pulled Space: 1999 off air after twelve episodes because it was judged too brutal and horrifying?
Finland
Finland's national programme board stepped in twice, and the complete show was not seen there until a small local channel ran it in 1996.
Q 30Which security chief joined Space: 1999 in its second series as a romantic interest for the alien science officer?
Tony Verdeschi
Tony Verdeschi was played by Tony Anholt, whom Gerry Anderson already knew from his earlier adventure series The Protectors.