The Man Out There

   No.6 told No.2 that he wanted to be the first man on the Moon. Did he really value his privacy so much? Would No.6 really have gone to such exteme lengths to be alone? Well No.6 may not have been the first man on the Moon, but Patrick McGoohan was the first man in space in the 1961 'Armchair Theatre' play 'The Man Out There.' McGoohan plays Nicholai Soloviov  the Russian cosmonaut, indeed the first man, to venture out of the earth's atmosphere.

  Although the Soloviov achieves orbit, the success of the mission is jeopardised by a mechanical failure, in that the escape tower did not eject after launch, thus preventing the dispersal of the space capsules parachute after re-entry. There is a communications breakdown due to sunspot activity, yet by a freak of radio reception Soloviov is able to make contact with Marie the wife of a trapper living in the rugged, blizzard - swept North-West of Canada. The two people who desperately need help, are cut off from the rest of the world, and need to help each other.
   I wonder if No.1 shared the same fate as Nicholai Soloviov, who after blasting off out of a silo in the Village aboard the red one rocket, No.1 became stranded in a rocket orbiting the Earth, cut off from the world with but a few hours to live, before his rocket burns up on an uncontrolled re-entry!

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