Voyage to the

Planets

A Traveller’s Guide to Leaving Earth

ABC DVD

Roadshow

Voyage to the Planets is narrated by Richard Roxburgh and while packed to the brim with technical information is presented in such a way that it is a joy to watch. Each episode is presented in the form of a travel guide and answers such questions as what would be the journey be like to each planet ? What are the dangers ? What are the great sights that cannot be missed and, most significantly, what do you need to know about each planet before embarking on your quest.

The series is beautifully presented with stunning animations, interesting interviews and include quirky and unusual side discussions to keep up your interest. The soundtrack is energetic but not overpowering. The balance between content which is highly technical and reaching a wide audience is sometimes hard to achieve but Voyage to the Planet’s does well. Occasionally there were some moments when the need for a broad appeal annoyed me, such as the “surfs up” music at the beginning and the rather ocker debate about how to pronounce Uranus with all the related toilet humour. But these are very minor criticisms.

Each episode offers the very best of contemporary astronomy with interviews with scientists, discussions of past and future space journeys by NASA and the European space agency and lots of interesting fact and figures. The comprehensive summary of ongoing and upcoming space missions which will offer new data over the next decades actually fills the viewer with excitement about the future of astronomy.

The nexus of the series is a room filled with images projected on large screeners where people of different ages (teens, adults and child) co-ordinate the various segments of each show. It is also very sci fi and very impressive.

Episode 1 – We begin our journey with a journey to the red planet of Mars and then in Episode 2 come face to face with the largest planet in our Solar System, Jupiter.

Episode 3 – We take a trip to planetary pin-up boy, Saturn, and not only do you get a ringside seat to the greatest spectacle in the Solar System and find out the secret of those amazing rings but experience its two moons.

Episode 4 – Looks at the cold ice giants of Uranus and Neptune, while in Episode 5 we turn the other direction and explore the Hot planets of Venus and Mercury.

In Episode 6 we come to experience the once-was-planet of Pluto and are introduced to the outer reaches of the kuiper belt and beyond.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 5 of the digital and print edition of Synergy.

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