this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025
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Today I Learned

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The series was a hoax at the expense of its contestants, who were told they were being trained as cosmonauts at a Russian military base before undergoing a five-day trip into low Earth orbit. In reality, the entire series was filmed in Dore, and the contestants did not leave Earth.

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[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 55 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Participants: Sarah-Jane Cass, 19, a media studies student from Kent.

I hope she milked the fuck out of that for any papers she needed to write during university, lol. Imagine being able to legitimately cite yourself on a paper.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 4 points 2 days ago

Makes me wonder if she knew from the start and went along for the opportunity.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 50 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The Cadets were told that they would be in "near space" (as opposed to "outer space"), causing only a 30% loss of gravity, which was compensated by "gravity generators" built into the ship; this highly improbable explanation was believed.

Mind boggling.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I...am skeptical that it was actually believed.

[–] JASN_DE@feddit.org 13 points 2 days ago

Billions of people believe in some kind of magical sky fairy. Just saying.

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 2 days ago

Imagine you take 200 people who answered an ad seeking "thrill seekers" and to be on TV. Then you psychologically weed it down with questions in order to pick the 6 most gullible, groupthink, extroverts.

That's how they got the people. Out of all the applicants. However many their were, they took the most gullible extroverted ones they could get.

It never would have been pulled off as a success with regular people.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yea, me too. More like reality show wannabe's that just went along with it for their 15 minutes.

[–] bonenode@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago

It was the 2000s. Internet disinformation wasn't really a major thing. I can imagine they believed it.

[–] bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

Gravity at the height of the ISS is still about 90%. It’s only being in orbit that results in free-fall giving a zero-g effect, not so different from those “vomit-comet” flights.

So if they’d come up with some explanation about it staying up without being at orbital speed it would have been closer to the truth.

[–] SaraTonin@lemmy.world 48 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It was a weird show. All the contestants were nice people who reacted well to their situation, and you could see the presenters and guests getting more and more uncomfortable as the week went on - being less and less sure that it actually was funny rather than mean.

The finale was a little anticlimactic as the contestants seemed to have pretty much worked it out. I wonder if they had a little help in that department.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I ran across a series that used that same idea, only it wasn't a game show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(miniseries)

[–] hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It was a great setup, but ran out of steam in the last episode, I think.

Also one of Michelle Mylett’s first roles before she went on to star in Letterkenny.

It really deserved more than it got, I really enjoyed it but was so sad it cut itself so short.

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Wait until you learn about the 'Mars One Project' :)

[–] mech@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

Or the "Apollo Project" ;)

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago
[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

A TV show has tricked half of America into electing a 34x convicted felon as traitor to the throne..

This isn’t that far fetched.

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Worst hoax ever 😭

[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Don’t forget about the Joe Schmoe show.