Space

"Space" is the ninth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on November 12, 1993. It was written by series creator Chris Carter, directed by William Graham, and featured guest appearances by Ed Lauter and Susanna Thompson. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Space" earned a Nielsen household rating of 6.5, being watched by 6.1 million households in its initial broadcast, and received negative reviews from critics. The show centers on FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. When investigating possible sabotage in NASA's Space Shuttle program, Mulder and Scully find that an astronaut who had been Mulder's childhood hero may be possessed by an extraterrestrial spirit. Carter was inspired to write "Space" after reading about news of the "face on Mars"—an instance of pareidolia wherein a mound in the Cydonia region of Mars was taken to resemble a human face. The episode was conceived as a low budget bottle episode, due to several earlier episodes having exceeded their budgets. Although the episode made use of a significant amount of inexpensive stock footage from NASA, the construction of the Mission Control set was subject to cost overruns, eventually leading the episode to become the most expensive of the first season. Plot In 1977, after the discovery of a face sculpted into the landscape of Mars, Lt. Col. Marcus Aurelius Belt (Ed Lauter), an astronaut, is plagued by flashbacks of an encounter with the disembodied face during a spacewalk. Sixteen years later, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are approached by Michelle Generoo (Susanna Thompson), a communications commander for NASA's Mission Control. Generoo believes that someone within NASA is sabotaging launch attempts. A recent Space Shuttle liftoff was aborted seconds before commencement, and Generoo fears the next launch will be similarly compromised. She also has a personal interest, as her fiancé will be aboard the next mission.