News @ Nature.com: Space cadets taken for a ride.

“Television show hopes to convince participants they are in orbit. […] It is all set to be the thrill of a lifetime. A group of intrepid adventurers, having fought off dozens of other hopefuls, will head into space for a five-day voyage, to be watched and envied by millions. Except they won’t.”

I don’t even want to imagine what happens when the people who are “sent into space” in this show find out they are duped – in front of millions of TV spectators, no less. There’s an article (see quote below) at Spiegel online (German) which reports that there are going to be actors among the candidates whose job it is to dispel doubts any of the real candidates may have. Only four people will “fly into space”, and even one of them is going to be an actor. The fact that there are going to be “moles” among the candidates makes it even worse in my view.

On the other hand I hope that noone is so easily fooled, but maybe the candidates are all people who think that the movie Armageddon was a good film with serious science behind it. I wonder how the film crew explains to them that the sun will shine into the plane from different directions while they are allegedly being flown to Russia (the article says they are going to be flying in circles above the sea and landing in Britain).

Aus dem Artikel bei Spiegel online, Sender gaukelt Kandidaten Flug ins All vor:

“Um auf Nummer sicher zu gehen, hat Endemol zudem Schauspieler in das Freiwilligen-Team eingeschleust, die bei Bedarf aufkommende Zweifel zerstreuen sollen.
Tatsächlich ins All “fliegen” sollen schließlich nur vier Personen, davon ein Schauspieler.”