Space Force was a BBC Radio

BBC Radio

BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 serial, broadcast in the mid-1980s.

Written by Charles Chilton

Charles Chilton

Charles Chilton MBE is a BBC radio presenter, a writer and a producer. Born in Bloomsbury in London, England, he never knew his father - who was killed during World War I - and when he was six his mother died as a result of having a botched abortion, so he was raised by his grandmother. He was...

, it was originally intended to be a sequel to his Journey into Space

Journey Into Space

Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme, written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last radio programme in the UK to attract a bigger evening audience than television...

 series (broadcast in the 1950s), using the cast who'd just made a one-off revival of that series (The Return From Mars); while this idea was dropped late in the day, the four characters are nevertheless essentially the same as those from the earlier series, albeit with different names.

The first series begins during the northern summer of 2010. Both series seem to initially mirror the first two Journey Into Space

Journey Into Space

Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme, written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last radio programme in the UK to attract a bigger evening audience than television...

stories before branching off into quite different plots. Some of the dialogue in the first episode, "The Voice from Nowhere", references time becoming unstuck and that the year 2010 may now be in the future. This suggests the story was to originally follow the plot of "Operation Luna" more closely before it was changed, and time travel was removed.

A second series, known as Space Force 2, featured the same main characters, once again played by Barry Foster

Barry Foster (actor)

Barry Foster was a British actor who appeared in numerous film roles and is known for his leading role as a Dutch detective in the ITV drama series, Van der Valk, which spanned five series over 20 years from 1972....

, Nigel Stock, Nicky Henson

Nicky Henson

Nicholas Victor Leslie "Nicky" Henson is an English actor who has portrayed many roles since 1963. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977. He was born in London.-Early life:...

, and Tony Osoba

Tony Osoba

Tony Osoba is a Scottish actor best known for his role as Jim 'Jock' McClaren in the popular 70s British sitcom Porridge, and appeared in its sequel Going Straight. Osoba was the first black Scottish actor to appear on primetime television when he appeared in the series.His other roles include...

.

Within both series, "Space Force" is the name of the team's spaceship, rather than the name of an organisation.

Each episode had an approximate run-time of 30 minutes.

First series

The episodes of the first series, broadcast in 1984, were:

1. "The Voice from Nowhere"
2. "Towards the Unknown"
3. "The Silver Strangers"
4. "The Time Ship"
5. "Threshold of the Stars"
6. "Marooned in Space"

Second series

The episodes of the second series, broadcast in 1985, were:

1. "The Return of the Sun God"
2. "The Red Planet"
3. "The Great Martian Pyramid"
4. "A Test of Endurance"
5. "Living with Death"
6. "Unto Death and Beyond"

Characters

The main characters in Space Force were:

Character	Actor	Equivalent character from Journey Into Space Journey Into Space Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme, written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last radio programme in the UK to attract a bigger evening audience than television...	Description
Captain Saxon Berry	Barry Foster Barry Foster (actor) Barry Foster was a British actor who appeared in numerous film roles and is known for his leading role as a Dutch detective in the ITV drama series, Van der Valk, which spanned five series over 20 years from 1972....	Jet Morgan	Captain of the Space Force and leader of the team. Also captained the Lunar 9 freighter for the first episode of the first series before being transferred to the Space Force.
Lodderick Sincere	Tony Osoba Tony Osoba Tony Osoba is a Scottish actor best known for his role as Jim 'Jock' McClaren in the popular 70s British sitcom Porridge, and appeared in its sequel Going Straight. Osoba was the first black Scottish actor to appear on primetime television when he appeared in the series.His other roles include...	Steven Mitchell	The flight engineer for Space Force, a keen astronomer who sometimes is enough hot-headed to get himself and the team into trouble.
Lemuel "Chipper" Barnet	Nicky Henson Nicky Henson Nicholas Victor Leslie "Nicky" Henson is an English actor who has portrayed many roles since 1963. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1977. He was born in London.-Early life:...	Lemmy Barnet	The radio operator for Space Force. The joker of the group who also struggles with the terrifying situations the team face. In a direct link to Journey into Space, Chipper refers once to his grandfather, Lemmy Barnett.
Professor Magnus Carter	Nigel Stock	Doc Matthews	Added to the Lunar 9 crew under somewhat mysterious circumstances, Magnus is part of a secret organisation searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Music

Both the first and second series reused commercially-available incidental music by Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith

Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....

. Cues from Logan's Run

Logan's Run (1976 film)

Logan's Run is a 1976 science fiction film based on the novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. It depicts a dystopian future society in which population and the consumption of resources are managed and maintained in equilibrium by the simple expediency of killing...

, Outland

Outland (film)

Outland is a 1981 British science fiction thriller film written and directed by Peter Hyams.Set on Jupiter's moon Io, it has been described as a space Western, and bears thematic resemblances to High Noon....

, and Capricorn One

Capricorn One

Capricorn One is a 1977 science fiction thriller movie about a Mars landing hoax. It was written and directed by Peter Hyams and produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment. It stars James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O. J...

can be heard in series one, while music from The Wind and the Lion

The Wind and the Lion

The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 adventure film. It was written and directed by John Milius and starred Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith and John Huston...

, Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...

, Gremlins

Gremlins

Gremlins is a 1984 American horror comedy film directed by Joe Dante, released by Warner Bros. The film is about a young man who receives a strange creature—called a Mogwai—as a pet, which then spawns other creatures who transform into small, destructive, evil monsters. It was followed by a sequel,...

and Alien

Alien (film)

Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...

can be heard in series two.