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Mir Pretenders

By Robert Wright
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2000, at 11:30 PM ET
Illustration by Robert Neubecker

NBC, we learned today, is paying Survivor creator Mark Burnett $35 million for the rights to Destination Mir, a reality-based TV series in which Americans will compete for the right to spend time on the Russian space station Mir.

Let me get this straight: The winner gets sent to the space station Mir? What does the loser get—a year in a Russian submarine? Or maybe an Indy 500 slot in a Ford Explorer equipped with Firestone tires? As you may recall, the last big flurry of news from Mir, in 1997, was about a series of American astronauts almost dying there. First there was a harrowing, 15-minute on-board fire, then a collision with a Russian support craft that punctured a Mir module and rendered it uninhabitable. And so on. Basically, Mir is to modern spaceflight what the Monitor and the Merrimack are to modern naval warfare. (Well, almost.) Even Russian astronauts don't spend time on Mir anymore.

The distinct possibility of the winner's televised corpse orbiting Earth indefinitely is not the only problem this show faces. Apparently, the drama is supposed to come from the contestants undergoing rigorous astronaut training in Russia, vying to be deemed the most Mir-worthy—an extended physical fitness test, basically. So the show will wholly lack the vital soap-operatic dimension of Survivor—the conniving, the bonding, the broken bonds, etc.

Oh, well, I guess it beats Big Brother. And I'm sure it won't be the worst thing to emerge from the frenzy of Survivor envy that has swept the networks.

Meanwhile, I predict trouble ahead for Survivor itself. The next round, which debuts in January, will suffocate in strategic self-consciousness. This time everyone will know from the get-go what only Richard realized the first time around: You've got to get yourself into a coalition pronto. The first day contestants spend in the Australian Outback will be like fraternity rush on amphetamines. Then, with the competing alliances set, the next month or so will be like the Cold War: a boring contest of attrition, with the winning coalition predetermined by its superior heft.

The only hope for a consistently interesting show lies in uncertain allegiances: secret agents, double agents, and people whose fragile sense of self leads to endless dithering. (Is Kelly available?)

Of course, there will be renewed drama toward the end, when the victorious coalition implodes. Still, there'll never be another Survivor like the original, which began amid innocence and then gradually, rivetingly, sank into debasement. I'll be watching this Friday when Survivor: Back to the Island takes us back into the muck of human treachery.

By the way: Survivor lent vital support to one side of a longstanding argument about human nature. I'll discuss this in a column next week. (Note to regular readers: No, the vindicated view of human nature is not evolutionary psychology—at least, not writ large. I'm referring to an argument within evolutionary psychology.)

Finally, a point of clarification: I am not the Robert Wright who is president of NBC. However, should something go badly awry with Destination Mir, I'm available.

Related on MSN
 Find out more about NBC's "Survivor in space" show here.

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Robert Wright, a visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site meaningoflife.tv and is the author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
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Reader Comments from The Fray:


We have to survive the appalling domesticity and mediocrity of the media in each and every form. The reduction to the flattest common denominator, the Readers' Digest-like drive toward simplification of issues and the general vulgarity of it all is the greatest danger we face these days.

--Carl

(To reply click here.)


In my career as an aerospace engineer I have followed the developments with Mir. MirCorp have made multi-million dollar investments in the station to make it viable for inhabitance again. The fact is that we travel daily in airframes of Boeing and Airbus aircraft that are just as aged, if not older than the airframe that holds Mir together. And yes, many have had their problems, but got air-certified just the same.

Call me crazy, but in today's engineering world of "better"-faster-cheaper I would still place my last dollar in a bet on equipment that was developed in an era where quality was allowed to come at a price.

--Prometheus

(To reply, click here.)


[Notes from the Fray Editor: There was very strong grouping (to use a Fray technical term which we just made up) in the many comments on this article.

Those in group number one want to sign up to go to Mir, and as soon as possible please. "Is there any information about entering this space contest? Thanks, Dave Schweiger." There was even a minority view that even if you say you don't want to go, well, secretly you do.

Group number two thought it was tasteless to mention the Russian submarine and Firestone tires in the article: "Mr Wright you are heartless."

Group number three wanted to know why the article was advertised on MSN with a picture of someone called John Edward. (Apparently Mr Edward is psychic, so perhaps he knows the answer--we at The Fray don't.)]

(9/18)

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