“Space” is episode nine of season one of The X-Files.
The episode opens at NASA Mission Control in Pasadena, California. It’s 1977 and a reporter is at JPL; the first photos have been coming in of Mars from the Viking spacecraft. There are signs of water and a rock formation that looks like a sculpted human face. NASA has denied that is an indication of the existence of an alien civilisation, and a NASA representative states that it is simply a geologic anomaly.
Later, the same man returns to a room with a copy of the image. That night, as he sleeps, he remembers a spacewalk, one in which the man, Commander Belt, reported seeing something out there coming at him. Belt wakes up and the shadows on the ceiling morph into a face resembling that on Mars, which lunges at him.
In the present day, Belt is overseeing a Shuttle launch from Houston. The launch ends up being aborted at 3 seconds due to a red light.
Two weeks later and Mulder is with Scully, waiting to meet someone. He received a note from someone who stated they worked at NASA and wanted to talk to someone at the FBI. He has no idea why the cloak & dagger routine. They are beginning to think it’s a crank when a woman with a briefcase walks by and then returns.
The woman introduces herself as Michelle Generoo (Susanna Thompson). She sent the note; she works as Mission Control Communications Commander for the Space Shuttle. She has a reason to believe that there may be a saboteur at NASA. She may have evidence, and talks about the aborted launch. If it hadn’t been aborted, the fuel tank and the orbiter could have exploded on the launch pad.
Michelle received a material analysis of the valve that failed. It revealed deep scoring marks inside the valve. It looks like evidence of tampering, but it’s unexplainable how and when anyone could have done it. The damage would have required launch pad temperatures to occur and anyone at NASA would tell you that it is impossible to do that sort of damage undetected. Mechanical failure is the official explanation. There’s another launch window tomorrow, and Michelle’s fiancée is on that shuttle.
At Houston the next day, Scully is asking who would want to sabotage the Shuttle. Mulder has a long list from terrorists to opponents of big science to those who think the Shuttle is obsolete to those believing the government is hiding evidence of aliens. There’s less than 11 hours to the launch.
The two go to see Commander Belt, a big hero to Mulder who practically gushes over him. Belt doesn’t think there is any reason to suspect sabotage and will not postpone the Shuttle flight. It’s virtually impossible to do what was suggested and everyone at NASA wants the mission to be a success. He agrees that they can watch from Mission Control, because they’d probably go over his head if he didn’t. Outside, Scully asks why Mulder didn’t ask for Belt’s autograph.
Asking some of the people who work on the Shuttle about the scoring results in the reply that it doesn’t make sense. The man works for an outside contractor and hadn’t seen the report. Perhaps it was ordered by NASA. There are 17,000 things that could go wrong and 17,000 people who make sure they don’t. Belt makes the final decision on the launch. Afterwards, Mulder tells Scully he can’t believe how much faith they put in machines. Mulder doesn’t believe Bell would endanger the astronauts and hopes the X-Ray is bogus.
The launch goes without a hitch. At their hotel, Mulder tells Scully he’s just fulfilled one of his boyhood fantasies. She is less into it. Then Michelle comes running up to them; something is wrong with the Shuttle and comms are down.
They head back in separate cars through rather bad weather. Michelle is in the car in front, trying to see through the fog, rain and dark, when the face from earlier lunges at her and she loses control. Mulder and Scully come to her car, which is now upside down, and help get her out, battered but mostly okay. She says that something came at her in the fog.
At Mission Control, communications with the Shuttle is poor and the Shuttle is unable to rotate. Which means that the cabin temperature is now rising. Backup has failed and, according to Michelle, it looks like someone is interfering with the telemetry at their end.
Michelle, Mulder and Scully head to the databanks where the problem is. The lights shutoff and, when they come back on, someone seems to be hiding. He works there, though; a sensor went off reporting a malfunction in the telemetry processor.
Belt is back in Mission Control and he decides to hand over control to the Shuttle. Which is dangerous; cutting off the telemetry might strand the astronauts up there. The payload needs to be delivered as well. Contact is cut with the Shuttle and, of course, it takes too long before there’s a response. It was, however, successful. The telemetry problem still needs fixing and it looks like Belt has problems too. Problems he is both aware and unaware of, linked to the face that has been seen several times.