This is meta: but why did this moon city have barely more than 300 people? It’s not the USS Enterprise. Of course, this show did not have to live with the reality of another show, but a moon base could very realistically have 3,000 or 30,000. In a lot of episodes, this would have made more sense. Like, The End Of Eternity, a main plot point was pilot Baxter had to deal with losing his ability to fly. That’s believable if there are ample pilots, but with well less than 400 Alphans, there’s no way Baxter’s condition would prevent him flying.
- Alpha looks large, but much of its volume needs to be dedicated to food production; even hydroponic agriculture takes a lot of space. And everything organic needed to be initially shipped up from Earth, which is hideously expensive. Add to that labs and industrial facilities, and you see why there’s only room enough for a village’s worth of people. Remember that even at only 311 people, Alpha is operating at the limit of its life support capacity.
