Planetes (TV)

The Greek word ΠΛΑΝΗΤΕΣ, which forms the title of this anime, means "wanderers". It is the word applied by the ancient Greeks to the "stars" (or so they seemed) which weren't fixed in the night sky, but wandered - from which we get our modern English word "planets".

Ibn Fadlan was a 10th century Arab traveller who wrote a Risala (a travel account) of his diplomatic mission to the King of the Volga Bulgars in 921AD (309AH). His book (the Kitāb ilá malik aṣ-Ṣaqālibah) is one of the most sources on the Rus Vikings, and his famous account of a dignatary's funeral is very often used to describe Viking funerary practices (although it may have been mostly Khazar traditions, in fact). He was played by Antonio Banderas in the movie "13th Warrior," which was *very* loosely based on his account (and Beowulf).

The Clementine orbit refers to the NASA space probe Clementine, which in 1994 discovered the possible presence of ice in the lunar poles. Its orbit had a perilune of 400 km.

The Debris Section manager, Philippe Myers, asks Yuri to send him a copy of the video news report about Robbie from Episode 19. Yuri asks him if the Ogg format is OK. The manager replies he does not know much about computers and will leave the details up to Yuri. The Ogg format Yuri refers to is a real video codec called Ogg Theora.

Winner at the 2005 Seiun Awards for Best Media of the Year.

The scene in episode 6 at around 20:30 is a tribute to Kurosawa Akira's famous movie "Seven Samurai".

The golf-on-the-moon reference in episode 7 is a tip of the hat to Apollo 14's captain Alan Sheppard, who in 1971 managed to drive a ball 2400 yards with a makeshift 6 iron - making golf the only human sport ever played off-planet.