Moonbase Alpha

a.k.a.

• Alpha (very common reference, perhaps more common than the offical name)
• Moonbase
• Alpha Moonbase
• MBA
• the base
• Mondbasis Alpha? (in German?)
• Moon Base Alpha
• Alpha Base (part of label outside Koenig's quarters)

What

• Home of the Alphans throughout the series after Breakaway. A large facility located in a crater on the near side of the Moon. When the moon broke away (in the TV series) from the Earth in 1999, MBA became the survival ark of the 300+ lunar survivors, as the Moon careened through deep space.

Details

• Also a major research facility.
• Unverified: Well before Breakaway, the staging facility for the Ultra mission?
• Pre-Breakaway, is the staging facility for training of the astronauts of at least one mission: the Meta probe. The net result, post-Breakaway, is presumably that Alpha has ended up with a few more astronauts it may not have otherwise, including Capt. Alan Carter. (The number could have been even higher, if it were not for the rash of fatal brain disease among some of these astronauts.)
• After Breakaway, the base sometimes took damage from space phenomena, alien attacks, and destructive internal acts.
• The spacious Main Mission control and command room was eventually abandoned for deeper and smaller Command Center. Filming reason: smaller set. Speculative in-story reason: less exposed to attack than MM.
• Powered primarily, if not solely, by nuclear reactors.
• Five attached landing pads for Eagles (and occasionally other spaceships).
• Extensive radial Travel Tube rapid-transport system.
• Several stories above ground, especially the MM tower; several more below ground.
• Design suggests it was built outwardly in stages, sometimes further in one "slice" than another.
• Several outlying facilities including apparently up to five more Eagle landing pads. It appears at least a couple are connected by Travel Tube but no further structures, but it is not clear if all are connected by such or some are completely isolated.
• Threat of flooding within MBA's crater, when the denizens of planet Ariel gave the Moon an atmosphere -- and it started raining.
• Took damage on a number of occasions, and suffered some temperature variations at times.

Alternates

• ATAP: The one of a different reality, abandoned. (Details unverified)
• OMOH, but only in a manner of speaking: Vegans construct a complete and apparently perfect replica of MBA in an attempt to fool Tony and Helena.