Alpha Centauri A and B
Proxima is inside the red circle
Image By
Skatebiker at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46833562
Copyright © 2016
by Ralph F. Couey
Except cited portions
On September15, 1965, the CBS television network debuted
a new science fiction show entitled “Lost in Space.” The Irwin Allen production followed the adventures of the
Robinson family who were being sent on an interstellar mission to find a new
place for an over-populated earth to call home.
The show was known far more for its campy style than anything else. The main character became, not the Robinson’s,
but the evil conniving Dr. Zachary Smith, who had snuck aboard as a foreign agent
to sabotage the mission, but managed to get stuck there when the ship took
off. He was certainly the most
buffoonish foreign agent ever, in addition to being a sniveling coward of the
first order, and the episodes mainly revolved around Smith doing foolish things
to get the Robinson’s in trouble. It was
not intellectual by any stretch, but managed to stay on the air for three
seasons before being canceled, according to statements by cast and crew, due to
declining ratings and increasing costs.
So what, you may ask. Well, the destination for the Robinsons and
their saucer-shaped Jupiter 2 spacecraft was Alpha Centauri, long known to be
the closest star to our own solar system, about 4.2 light years away. According
to the plot, there was a planet there that could support human life and it was
the Robinson’s mission to survey the planet and report back.
As it has turned out, Irwin Allen seems to have been a prophet.
