The Zero-X was man's first attempt to reach Mars and the first twenty
minutes of the Thunderbird feature Thunderbirds are Go was
taken up with a homage to spacecraft that wouldn't be equaled until
2001: a Space Odyssey for pure devotion. This gargantuan
spacecraft was designed to take off from an airfield using giant
radio-controlled booster wings, fly to Mars, explore the planet, and
then return to Earth, where the wings would be reattached for landing
while in midair. Needless to say, the point where
disaster struck isn't too difficult to guess.
The
first shot of the film showed the Zero-X hanger being opened and the
great space craft rolled out. No, that's not true. Rather,
the entire front of the hanger slide underground and the rest of the
hanger rolled away from the spacecraft. After that,
the giant radio-controlled booster wings were attached, the crew
module rolled out and connected, and a giant steel aerospike was stuck
to the front. The methods used for each of these steps was
plausible, even feasible, but, like the Zero-X itself, were clearly
designed by a firm whose motto was "No budget ceiling."
The
first shot of the film showed the Zero-X hanger being opened and the
great space craft rolled out. No, that's not true. Rather,
the entire front of the hanger slide underground and the rest of the
hanger rolled away from the spacecraft. After that,
the giant radio-controlled booster wings were attached, the crew
module rolled out and connected, and a giant steel aerospike was stuck
to the front. The methods used for each of these steps was
plausible, even feasible, but, like the Zero-X itself, were clearly
designed by a firm whose motto was "No budget ceiling."