Yes, the Russian crew was released at the same time and yes, that’s a Russkie sailor demonstrating a little detente there. I think you even see a few aboard the USN Wayne when they blow their way out of the Liparus.
However, did anyone ever notice that once the attack on Drax’s space station starts, all the astronaut trainees - in fact every female Draxite - conveniently disappears?
Carrying the first generation of Drax’ future race of space gods, they’ve been quickly evacuated to his private cryogenic escape satellite, waiting to be reanimated by Drax’ heir in BOND 26…
I think they were in their quarters, starting work on creating the new master race. In that case I’m saying they were tucked away from the other action and subsequently died in the explosion.
No, no, no. They were all saved. They all went through the screen’s hidden backdoor. Back in the days of old, if you went outside during the film, you could find them all standing together behind the cinema, smoking and chatting about the past weekend.
Same goes for the passengers on that train in SPECTRE, btw.
Surely a fruitless task on their own without the men?
The men were on board and we see them in the film, kissing and holding hands with the women. I think the movie novelisation backs up my statement too about where they all went.
Fair play: I took it as the men went fighting as, if there were just the flight crews available to defend the satellite, they would have been overrun in seconds. Then again, maybe I’m overthinking it… or maybe mating pairs of both genders stuck a spacesuit on and got blown to bits in space. Either way, Moonraker is pure class.
If they were blown to bits it makes MR even more nasty when you factor in existing content like the Dobermans. To be part of that master race you’d have to be highly brainwashed. I’m kind of sorry for them but I’m also not.
Kinda like: “Hey Mom, I got the job with Whyte Enterprises. Start Tuesday on an oil rig in Baja. I told you that geology degree would pay off. First check goes to the clinic for the operation you need.”
Almost as fascinating as how - and by whom - that space station was built is the question how Drax went about recruiting his humankind 2.0 breeding stock.
Evidently he had to cast a wide net across the scope of population to identify specimens fitting his personal standards in geno- and phenotype. But how to proceed from there? Did he simply ask ‘I’m planning on wiping humans from the Earth and replacing them with a better race. You up for it?’ until he had the necessary numbers? And those who refuse (or are just lukewarm about the whole idea) serve then in his Doberman obedience school? And how did he pair the candidates afterwards; drawing lots or leave it to nature to run its course and hope for the best?
Perhaps, given the very particular nature of this venture, Drax started out much sooner. He wasn’t just looking for young and healthy people of both sexes, physically and intellectually trained to the limits, able and willing to replicate with likeminded individuals. But they must also be functional sociopaths with a complete disregard for human life and a total absence of empathy.
These traits would probably best be cultivated under cover of a large scale charitable developmental/humanitarian scheme. Something with kids, ideally orphans (or kids in a position to easily become orphans). This way, Drax would have had years for evaluation, indoctrination and careful selection. Corinne Dufour shows not all his employees fall into the sociopath/space-übermensch category.
Strikes me such a scheme would be almost material for its own Bond film.
If I were Drax I would ask people if they wanted to go into space and shag all the blondes they wanted. If they said they weren’t interested I would know they weren’t fit to be in my master race. Two birds… 
And all this before social media! Drax was a genius!
Today, of course, Bezos would just have to ask, and his rockets would be overbooked in a few hours.
“Make Space Great Again” hats/helmets?
Logic and Moonraker – two antipodes from different universes. 
Or are they?
Let’s develop an elaborate plan to eradicate most of mankind with only a few handpicked survivors and then create Civilization 2.0.
Where do we begin? First thing we realize is that this is going to cost money. Lots of money. Truckloads of money. And as all this doesn’t take place in modern times when you have the chance to become an instant billionaire by doing “something on the internet” within a couple of years, we can safely assume that it would have taken at least between 15 and 20 years to amass sufficient funds back in the day.
Let’s be gentle and assume that the poisonous effect of the orchidea negra was known before, so we only need to fund expeditions to retrieve enough supplies of that orchid – we intend to eradicate humanity, just a handful of flowers won’t suffice. Or we fund research to synthesise the poison, depends on what is quicker and cheaper. All this doesn’t cost too much money, and as we’re doing well in business, we can start with this after the first 10 years, so there’s a slim chance that we have enough poison 5 years later.
With that out of the way, we can now start thinking about how exactly it’s possible to poison the entire mankind all at once while keeping ourselves unharmed at the same time. Every ordinary megalomaniac might create some sort of bunker with a super safe air filter system and everything, and hire some flying circus pilots (all very lovely, with gas masks) who are going spread the poison around the world. But as we know that this didn’t work for Mr Goldfinger on a much smaller scale, we need something more elaborate and fool proof: we’re going to use a rocket ship and then hide in space.
Some 15 years later (let’s be gentle again, we have tons of money by now and can hire the best scientists and technicians) we not only managed to develop, test and finally build and get to fly a prototype of said rocket ship, but also at the same time secretly built a hidden factory in the Brazilian jungle with all necessary facilities and several launch sites in which we’re now not only able to assemble a small armada of rocket ships but also to develop and build a giant space station. And we’re not talking about some tiny measly scrap heap like that ISS thing, but a luxurious big one that is able to give a safe home (and love chambers) to 100, maybe 150 beautiful people and some ugly but necessary technicians.
Half a dozen rocket ships and a space station don’t build themselves over the weekend, let’s calculate another 10 years for that.
We now have an armada of Space Shuttles, several tons of poison and a giant space station. Luckily, we had enough time to also invent a radar jamming system, and to recruit and train (by means described above) our “breeding stock”. All we now need is another 5 years to get that space station up there, and roughly 50 years after the plan was thought up, we’re ready to go. Yay.
If we’re really really lucky, no one of the thousands of people we needed for the execution of that plan talked in all those years, no nosy journalist got wind of the fact that there may be something wrong at Drax Inc. and none of the numerous government agencies we had to collaborate with during the development of the rocket ship suspected anything. And that no hobby astronomer or stargazer spotted that giant space station by accident.
Now, here’s where the movie seemingly gets it all wrong and jumps the shark: let’s be gentle one last time and assume that the movie plays two steps into the future, say 1981. Based on Michael Lonsdale’s birth date (and assuming that he plays a man of the same age) in 1931, it can only be that this elaborate plan was thought up by a toddler, only a few weeks after his birth. That’s exactly what all this sounds like, and therein lies the wonderful logic of Moonraker.
ducks and covers
Orphans like the Countess Lebinski and Lady Victoria Devon?
Privileged, cultured sociopaths who already regard themselves as genetically superior and yes, in a position to become orphans.
Oh, there’s certainly a spot or three for lateral entries. The whole scheme would seem to appeal to visionaries of a former generation, so naturally some disciples from that era would be attracted and sign up for their kids, from certain German-Austrian families in a temporary spot of bother to supporters of Enoch Powell and probably a vast network of further characters across Europe and the Americas.
In fact I think had Drax just come one generation later and at the focal spot in geopolitics he’d probably have succeeded with the support of the US and Russia…
Indeed. I like the contrasts with Blofeld’s Angels of Death, which puts MR in further Fleming footing despite the differences. The Angels were to sterilise the world food supply, and they’re definitely being brainwashed. The Drax girls are not doing sterilising (the globes are) but they’re doing the repopulating. The looks they give Bond when he’s being attacked by the python tell me they’re true believers. As you say, sociopaths with an absence of empathy.
In a deleted scene Drax, tears all over his face, a grown man, saying to a portrait of his father and his grandfather: I did it, I finally made your dreams come true, and I even bred the dobermans right.
Yep, let them burn. 
There isn’t a sicker power move than making love above the planet you’re okay with being cleansed. Drax’s scheme gathered all these weirdos in one place and actually did end up making Earth a better place with their permanent absence.
