1963: The Space Race (audio story)

1963: The Space Race was the one hundred and seventy-ninth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Jonathan Morris and featured Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown.

This was the second story in the 1963 audio trilogy celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Publisher's summary
November 1963, and the Soviet space programme reigns supreme. Having sent the first animals, then the first men beyond Earth's atmosphere, now they're sending a manned capsule into orbit around the Moon.

Just as Vostok Seven passes over into the dark side, however, its life support system fails. Only the intervention of the Sixth Doctor and Peri, adopting the identities of scientists from Moscow University, means that contact with the capsule is regained.

But something has happened to the cosmonaut on board. She appears to have lost her memory, and developed extreme claustrophobia. Maybe she's not quite as human as she used to be...

Part one
The TARDIS materialises in a desert and is unable to leave because of the broken temperature circuit, upon which the navigational circuits depend. The Doctor and Peri investigate a crashed Jeep a mile away and find the bodies of three Soviets with gunshot wounds inside; their ID papers identify two of them as physician Khristina Pushkin and astrophysicist Grigori Kalashnikov of Moscow University, but the third, a woman, does not have any papers. The Doctor takes two of their coats and he and Peri avoid the explosion of a bomb hidden beneath one of the seats, apparently put there to cover up the shootings.

When Sergeant Leonid Kurakin finds the Doctor and Peri and mistakes them for Pushkin and Kalashnikov, whom Captain Kozlov is expecting, the two travellers take on their identities and claim that they were the only two in the Jeep when it caught fire. The Doctor realises that they are in 1960s Kazakhstan when he learns of their destination, the secret Baikonur Cosmodrome, where General Leonov and Miss Petrov have lost contact with Marinka Talanov since Vostok 7's orbit took it to the dark side of the Moon.

Baikonur is receiving transceiver feedback, however, so the Doctor has them send high-pitched feedback to stir Talanov from unconsciousness and they find that she has no memory of her identity or where she is. The Doctor believes that she is suffering from a stress-related dissociative disorder and manages to calm her down before demanding her return to Earth, which he spends the next three days helping with whilst using the facilities to make a new temperature circuit. The process of bringing Talanov back, however, is complicated by her having lost her autobiographical memories and having difficulty remembering colours.

Peri is left a note by the inquisitive Leonid as he leaves her for guard duty and follows the directions to the restricted Research Area 4 where Kozlov reveals that he knows her and the Doctor to be impostors. He contacted the KGB after learning that somebody, whom he later realised was his lover Valentina Cherlin, was passing along information on a prototype lunar landing module to an enemy agent, but Valentina disappeared before Peri and the Doctor arrived. Peri is called away when the Vostok capsule returns and the Doctor watches as a dog in a spacesuit steps out instead of Talanov; he recognises the dog as Laika.

Part two
General Leonov has Laika isolated and examined by Miss Petrov, explicitly forbidding the Doctor from speaking with her. The Doctor and Peri deduce that Valentina was the third woman in the Jeep and that she was killed by the agent she was feeding information as part of a cover-up. Upon learning that General Leonov intends to have Laika euthanised, Miss Petrov presents the Doctor with X-rays showing that Laika's brain has been surgically altered and that she has Talanov's larynx, explaining how she can speak and why her voice was mistaken for Talanov's. He also spots what he believes is a flying saucer in a photograph of the dark side of the Moon.

Peri gets access to Laika thanks to Kozlov and carries her out when she promises to give an explanation to the Doctor, but Laika attacks her and releases the caged animals held in the testing facility before escaping with them through the ducts. The Doctor and Miss Petrov head into space in Vostok 8 to investigate the dark side of the Moon whilst Laika kills several soldiers in Kazakhstan. Peri tries to track her down with Leonid, who believes he knows that Peri is a KGB agent and gives her Valentina's diary, given to him to pass on to the KGB if anything happened to her.

The diary does not name the enemy agent, but Peri deduces from Valentina's distaste for having an affair with Kozlov because of his gender that it is Miss Petrov. Peri and Leonid are surrounded by Laika and her animals on their way to Mission Control to expose Miss Petrov. Laika agrees to let Peri go because of how she helped her, but she refuses to let Leonid go and he is only saved from being taken away by the timely arrival of Kozlov.

Vostok 8 enters lunar orbit and the Doctor uses a telescope to view what he thought was a flying saucer, which he finds is actually a US lunar base. Pulling a gun on him, Miss Petrov admits that Vostok 7 was sabotaged to keep the moonbase from being discovered by the Soviets and burns all the fuel to set Vostok 7 on a collision course, telling the Doctor he will be the first man to die on the Moon.

Part three
Before Miss Petrov can take the landing module to Moonbase Eisenhower, Vostok 8 is caught in a force field and taken down to the surface. She and the Doctor find themselves in a bubble of breathable atmosphere which follows them as they head to the moonbase, the purpose of which is as a refuge for the President and First Lady in the event of nuclear war, and find the mummified corpse of Barney Schwarz outside. Inside, they are greeted by Pchyolka and Mushka, for whom the Doctor expects his and Miss Petrov's larynxes and brains are intended.

The animals surround the cosmodrome and return with Laika through the vents to make a nest in the laboratory. Peri and Leonid are caught watching them from the observation room by Laika, who captures them and reveals that her plan for humanity is for them to be farmed for organ harvesting to augment animals. Kozlov attacks and allows them to escape to General Leonov, but Laika captures him instead and removes his larynx and brain.

The Doctor and Miss Petrov find a small manufactured black hole being used as a probe and, after testing it, the Doctor jumps into it. A consciousness communicates that it received Earth's transmissions and came to help, but it decided that humanity was not worthy of its help after learning of the Nazis and finding Laika in space. It agrees to allow the Doctor and Miss Petrov to return to Earth in an American rocket, Lincoln, to give them a chance to prove that humanity is worth saving and they swiftly depart.

Three days later, General Paterson of the US fires the A119 nuclear missile at Lincoln with the permission of the President. General Leonov informs the Doctor, who is unable to perform any evasive manoeuvres due to low fuel and asks that the Kremlin get in contact with the President to have the missile strike called off. However, the Doctor realises that it is 22 November 1963 in the US and that the President will soon be assassinated.

Part four
Kennedy is shot and the Doctor convinces Miss Petrov to reveal her identity as a spy for the Defense Intelligence Agency to General Paterson to get him to detonate the A119 prematurely. After sharing a kiss with Leonid, Peri suggests to General Leonov that they put on spacesuits and release knockout gas into the air ducts to subdue the animals. The plan is enacted and Peri and Leonid leave the cosmodrome and collect the Doctor and Miss Petrov from the landed capsule, after which General Leonov sends them to a rocket silo on account of having learnt that Laika is awake and launching an attack there.

The Doctor gets Leonid to drop him and Miss Petrov off at Mission Control and takes raw meat from the food store to lure the animals away. Peri and Leonid head to the rocket silo where Laika is preparing to use a nuclear warhead to wipe out the cosmodrome and put an end to the animal experimentation and weapons research. She has a rhesus monkey with the larynx of Captain Kozlov kill Leonid when he and Peri try to stop her and shoot General Leonov in the leg before going to finish him off, but they both fall. The warhead counts down and the Doctor arrives in the TARDIS, materialising it in mid-air to save himself from having to climb ladders to reach Peri.

Unable to stop the countdown because of a quadratic lock, the Doctor gets Peri to jump with him into the TARDIS where he and Miss Petrov have lured all the animals. He materialises the TARDIS around the warhead and places it in a time dilation field in a storeroom to slow the countdown and give him time to take it to Moonbase Eisenhower. There, he jumps back into the black hole and uses the possibility of the animals' extinction to convince the intelligence to give them a new life with whomever sent it. The animals are taken away, including Pchyolka and Mushka, and Miss Petrov jumps into the black hole as well to avoid being executed by the KGB.

The Doctor and Peri watch as Moonbase Eisenhower is destroyed by the warhead and then travel to July 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong land on the Moon. Whilst Peri sees it as a fake given that a number of other Americans had walked on the Moon before Armstrong, the Doctor points out that it is publicity stunt not only for mankind but for the rest of the universe as one never knows who might be listening.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Colin Baker
 * Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
 * Larisa Petrov - Karen Henson
 * General Mikhail-Leonov / General Paterson - David Shaw-Parker
 * Captain Alexei Kozlov / Lieutenant Andrews - Tom Alexander
 * Sergeant Leonid Kurakin / Scientist - Stuart Denman
 * Marinka Talanov / Female Worker / Laika - Samantha Béart

Crew

 * Cover Art - Anthony Lamb
 * Director - Nicholas Briggs
 * Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Music and Sound Design - Howard Carter
 * Producer - David Richardson
 * Script Editor - Alan Barnes
 * Writer - Jonathan Morris

Worldbuilding

 * Kalashnikov was born in 1919 while Pushkin was born in 1940.
 * Peri refers to the Baikonur Cosmodrome as "the Soviet Cape Canaveral."
 * Before travelling to the Moon on the Soviet lunar capsule, the Doctor tells Peri that he is far more qualified for space travel than Yuri Gagarin.
 * The United States government has built a moonbase on the far side of the Moon. It was named after former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
 * Moonbase Eisenhower was designed to contain a viable minimum population. In the event of a nuclear war, the plan was for its inhabitants to eventually return to Earth and rebuild human civilisation.
 * The Doctor refers to Stephen Hawking.
 * The Doctor considers the 1960s to be one of Earth's "most turbulent periods."
 * The A119 is a nuclear missile developed to be fired at the Moon as a sign of strength.
 * According to the history books, Lee Harvey Oswald was responsible for John F. Kennedy's assassination.
 * The Doctor likens himself to Noah.

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions that he once spent several months travelling across China with Marco Polo in 1289 after heating in the TARDIS broke down. (TV: Marco Polo)
 * Peri tells Sgt. Kurakin that she is a vegetarian. (TV: The Two Doctors, AUDIO: The Eye of the Scorpion)
 * Dr Petrov refers to the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS; AUDIO: 1963)
 * According to another account, Laika died in space. The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith buried her on Quiescia. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
 * The Doctor refers to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas on 22 November 1963. He tells Petrov that he has always intended to travel back and witness the assassination. He would later do so during his ninth incarnation. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy, TV: Rose) The Eighth Doctor once claimed that he had been accused of the assassination. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
 * Peri refers to the Apollo 11 moon landing on 20 July 1969. (TV: Blink, The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon) During a previous visit to Earth's moon, the Doctor rejected the idea of visiting the landing site in 1872, due to the historical damage a previous expedition would cause. (AUDIO: The First Sontarans)
 * While the Doctor was returning to the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the US Rocket Lincoln on 23 November 1963, eight other versions of him were present in England on the same day. One of these was another version of the Sixth Doctor, who was likewise travelling with Peri. Over the course of two hours, the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors and their respective companions Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Jamie McCrimmon, Zoe Heriot, Sarah Jane Smith, Leela, Nyssa, Peri, Ace and Charley Pollard all visited Bob Dovie at 59A Barnsfield Crescent in Totton, Hampshire, much to his annoyance. (AUDIO: The Light at the End)
 * Aside from visiting Bob Dovie in Hampshire, the Seventh Doctor would return to November 1963 on three subsequent occasions. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks; PROSE: The Algebra of Ice; AUDIO: 1963: The Assassination Games)