An abandoned Moon base (a nod to “The Silent Sea”)

The Silent Sea (Korean title: 고요의 바다) is a South Korean science-fiction thriller series that came out on Netflix on 24 December 2021. It has eight episodes and stars Bae Doona, Gong Yoo and Lee Joon. It was directed by Choi Hang-yong, who turned his own 2014 short film of the same name into the series, and the actor Jung Woo-sung was its executive producer.

The show is set in a future where Earth has dried up and drinking water is strictly rationed. A crew is sent to Balhae, a Korean research base on the Moon that was abandoned after a deadly accident. The series takes its name from a real place: Mare Tranquillitatis, the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 landed in 1969. The abandoned base on the 3D Moon is a small nod to the show.

The Moon idea

The series asks a big question: what if the thing people need most on Earth, clean water, became the reason to go to the Moon? The crew is told their only job is to bring back a sample from the empty base, and the story becomes a mystery about what really happened there. The show is a thriller made for teens and adults, with some frightening scenes, so it is best for older viewers. Its idea of searching the Moon for water connects to real science today.

The real Sea of Tranquility

The real Sea of Tranquility is not water at all. Like the other lunar ‘seas’, or maria, it is a wide, dark plain of hardened lava, about 876 km across. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed there and named their spot Tranquility Base. Before them, the robotic probe Ranger 8 crashed there on purpose in 1965 after sending back thousands of close-up photos, and Surveyor 5 landed there in 1967.

Story vs real science

Real scientists do hope to use water on the Moon, but not from a base like Balhae. The most promising places are frozen deposits in permanently dark craters near the poles, such as Shackleton crater at the south pole. That ice could one day give astronauts drinking water, air and rocket fuel. No one has built a base on the Moon yet; the ones in The Silent Sea, and on this toy Moon, are imagined.

On the 3D Moon

On the 3D Moon you can find an abandoned Moon base in the Sea of Tranquility, as a nod to the Korean series. Open its card to read about the show and the real place it is named after.