January 15, 2026
Space Station Alpha: The Encounter
In Space Station Alpha: The Encounter, players dive into an educational journey through the solar system and the mechanics of space exploration, the planet, mars and fundamentals of flight. The story follows a astronaut who is stationed on the research vessel Space Station Alpha, which has just stumbled upon a mysterious, abandoned alien craft - who is then deployed to explore it.
Gameplay Overview
- The Objective: Explore the station and collect all the hidden alien symbols to access the backend room passed the locked door.
- Interactive Learning: Engage with various experiments to trigger educational briefings from mission control.
- Hands-on Challenges: Discover new alien symbols by completing puzzles, such as getting the correct order of the planets in the solar system, building a functional biome, exploring Mars, star charts, building a sattelite out of space junk.
- Exploration: Tinker with advanced alien technology to understand the fundamental laws of space.
Development & Release
- Release Year: 1996
- Platforms: Windows (16-bit) and Macintosh (PowerPC/68k).
- Publisher: TeraMedia Ltd. (New Zealand)
- Developers: A large team of approximately 55 people, with key direction by Vivian Horner and Sally Celmer.
- Series: It was part of the “TimeBlazers” project, which produced other titles like Devil’s Canyon: A Dinamation Adventure.
The game famously featured Eugene Cernan, the retired NASA astronaut and the last man to walk on the Moon (Apollo 17). He provided an introductory quote and appeared in the game to inspire players about the future of space exploration and the possibility of alien civilizations
TeraMedia in collaboration with NASA Young Astronauts Council produced this game out of the former President of the United States, Ronald Regan era who initiated a push for kids/young adults to gain an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (which later was referred to as STEM).
Preservation
I was the first one to archive the Win31/95 files for this game, there was Macintosh Repository page for this game for the PPC/68k version, which was uploaded start of 2017, while my win31/95 installation files were uploaded by me in July 2021.
I’ve had this game for years, sitting around, I enjoyed playing it and I knew it was relatively obscure, I didn’t realize how obscure it was until I archived it.
Unfortunately I am unable to get a bit for bit “dd” of the disc with full win,mac & audio data due to scratches on the disc that happened years ago.
md5 checksums of the files
0751be707345ba414f16da0a70aac42e ALPHA.EXE
35f90381b2329277254c4475d3cf1143 AUTORUN.INF
811bca877de60dfc727eb4ea4b3dc00f B0.DIR
658b5d7ffc63ba3b327351d7c29d6c7b DISK1.ID
95fb79149f4ed374c49c9ee78edc0a55 HUD.DIR
eb3f9b11742721711b7e2e8896798119 INSTALL.EXE
5ee33e39895589ce9f69096b022f694b LINGO.INI
35042cdfcde99894cd24f145e7919190 PMATIC.DLL
f125370da22bc6a28e881e25318f9a33 QTIME203.EXE
d5cd6efce974dc6385f6799eab0502cc README.TXT
f5df04a5374ee612ed501500c141e0d4 SETUP.BMP
ccff5145cf9d0d445abac91563a94994 SETUP.EXE
ff91a4fb3ce8cc110a31de16725f617c SETUP.INI
13e641d5e21c3ed8a43e32fa9965383e SETUP.INS
73d7c639b8663520825050b39b98f641 SHARED.DIR
6531fdeb22820445bc3b267f83b531df TERADLL.DLL
3ff5f5e26be9a326ed5f5d1507728b02 UNINST.EXE
125f0c43f907053e39b422c494fb9ab1 UNINST16.EXE
2594df2718c32a1a368a07958c2a2e8c WININFO.DLL
b409d9d5adc6cb8c9cf07ac42960230a YAC.ICO
093d9ffd2aaa5ae8fa8eb1c2e703cc4d _INST16.EX_
11d6d2fcda0af1d1965c294560d2b24f _INST32I.EX_
c3200e3277aef0e5d150d797aa62d55f _ISDEL.EXE
c56a2555964ea49bc8d893b199b69f93 _SETUP.DLL
eb3f9b11742721711b7e2e8896798119 _SETUP.EXE
c72ecf5580d98708571c32af8ae74a97 _SETUP.LIB
33231b86f96a25e5b1757408942a4e2e _SETUP32.LIB
bda23d93fa14a109a2c6eab8debfdb88 YACFILES/THEENCOU.NTE
bda23d93fa14a109a2c6eab8debfdb88 YACFILES/THEENCO1.NTE
bda23d93fa14a109a2c6eab8debfdb88 YACFILES/THEENCO2.NTE
954f37201f1bfe5a9e33a848db3e66df YACFILES/A0.DIR
272d76407ed15e8f0218e4a117354661 YACFILES/A0B0.MOV
ae9582d685a2bd8bb868fb9f51cddec6 YACFILES/A0HUD.MOV
1a6155eb221037772e0b72a5373e0c67 YACFILES/A0SHIP.MOV
222b0786eee2d077b9bcb43ab45d6e05 YACFILES/ADV.MOV
1fb6549cde4657d62ee1c645c8394a6f YACFILES/ALPHA.EXE
6cf048bfd6d04d57a3a4dc596a35f921 YACFILES/B0.DIR
1b133dc05d8202cf81fee90f6282bd04 YACFILES/B0C0.MOV
8caabd9036506b9c249a41e8ec8004da YACFILES/B0E0.MOV
2c213c2f69e15ee4b6f6bf7a8065dbad YACFILES/B0F0.MOV
2404d9ebcef14e5ccc906ce12e12121b YACFILES/B0G0.MOV
23ab9271bae36abc32f6a31113752a73 YACFILES/BOH6.MOV
d3d2cdb413228a090d6447a23765d083 YACFILES/C0.DIR
47f899baca0d552623922c8e27e56536 YACFILES/C0B0.MOV
6b02676da61f96fbe011629a6169bd16 YACFILES/C0C1.MOV
784e472369d0246d1c3c64c832f46ec1 YACFILES/C0C2.MOV
25552fc52370f7f48b64611e3061e0af YACFILES/C0C3.MOV
e95fcbad3d2bf4b8826e162e1201eac5 YACFILES/C0C4.MOV
bf14834c1db557031637896d778e16e2 YACFILES/C1.DIR
e857c680cd1672dfca2bb3fcbf84a894 YACFILES/C1BLOB1.MOV
5b5c0ed5ec279d2577584e536bb488c1 YACFILES/C1BLOB2.MOV
6c78ea9c53c6855aab7cfd09eb45cbd8 YACFILES/C1C0.MOV
8679227d3e3780fd27e80ad7886bca82 YACFILES/C1ZOOMUP.MOV
1b70d44851378168b4120ae17492bf77 YACFILES/C2.DIR
ca4ee0008e5d39298363ceffd842b56b YACFILES/C2C0.MOV
bd2e56704c0728a00123c54a36914d98 YACFILES/C2FLYBY.MOV
5ad7f87ccd85fad96b84fb7616fa7614 YACFILES/C2SPIN.MOV
d8897f3f9204ed12ed9746beb198e53d YACFILES/C2ZICE.MOV
24e6d8b89c564cf2cffed7268ce2ac38 YACFILES/C3.DIR
fba4675883073c0a1f29b828a2679c8f YACFILES/C3C0.MOV
3da780be78c06270262c4536b8087a28 YACFILES/C4.DIR
e506fb2e142b570d66319609107afee6 YACFILES/C4C0.MOV
f984f2a49185f5d473c86f07e25b123f YACFILES/E0.DIR
3c8157f28a7bd7ac236b8efbfa5e66df YACFILES/E0.MOV
676a4f25b223c75c3ffdace3e651e734 YACFILES/E0B0.MOV
5263c44951798c0afbf3e4f794a50fde YACFILES/E0E1.MOV
8cd8a835d37fb93355add97057912497 YACFILES/E0E2.MOV
ef200e05a3b70e49f65189f959e9bfc8 YACFILES/E0E3.MOV
66f38bc15be02613c022296810420b29 YACFILES/E1.DIR
2365f81eba09efa56c41345f05d7dcb5 YACFILES/E1DRAG.MOV
2202238934c5fc58818b1c5e98c76500 YACFILES/E1E0.MOV
d013bf0b55435501ecff18aec5254d3c YACFILES/E1FLIGHT.MOV
464fddf652d7d6647912711b356dcd68 YACFILES/E1HIST.MOV
c9b00d06d61f6955603bbb0373e62c68 YACFILES/E1TEST.MOV
d7003ee6f63e38f24bcd9391596e8fd3 YACFILES/E1THRUST.MOV
7c600441a671f995ad4e3f0ceb3ecf42 YACFILES/E2.DIR
2696a112729393cb32c187bd3fbe4eac YACFILES/E2E0.MOV
723f3f6a179a714c4f0333ffcf9d9f1a YACFILES/E2WIND.MOV
34fd79898856f522d4e26d61e06e20b2 YACFILES/E2ZAERO.MOV
c335ec023b1c56e63e1fe56d193d6f41 YACFILES/E3.DIR
32bb428c3e3253ac3053179782783047 YACFILES/E3ACTION.MOV
439f0425d0fb18e8fe4b2bd48d128597 YACFILES/E3E0.MOV
d131f3b32c7422c2136b9f1340137249 YACFILES/E3MASS.MOV
0ec76b033b4a2881893e6e0e5f77cff5 YACFILES/E3OBJECT.MOV
bbd9e8a90c09d59bff4c13f0659979ef YACFILES/E3ORBITA.MOV
c030a3cd86a5ec19ece4b605881eae72 YACFILES/E3ORBITP.MOV
bc3c7a065380d15a5674ddeeda427eec YACFILES/E3ROCKET.MOV
852918aa9a4d6889a7cb258e105dd101 YACFILES/E3SLINGA.MOV
d969ce4d134acdb3f8fde596bc8080b4 YACFILES/E3SLINGB.MOV
bc4178de4c20f801371bb47d50e604ad YACFILES/E3ZLEAVE.MOV
1108f6557bbef92ceb45bdd3c093233a YACFILES/E4.MOV
9a19817b72bbb1edc889627e3c30a037 YACFILES/SHARED.DIR
3054af3b5de54795bf182dc931476955 YACFILES/F0.DIR
4379487c3d68cab0c0481fc275864d55 YACFILES/F0.MOV
7d6ac47b2aa836784f7183993ed1b5c7 YACFILES/F0B0.MOV
b210d6dad6c5ebcbd53d92d6d51202e9 YACFILES/F0F2.MOV
04e0c3700e02782a8180496204229117 YACFILES/F0F3.MOV
1cf3c4ff23f2c6be8adf23ceaf510010 YACFILES/F2.DIR
a77407cd3850f05b8d953234d131ea68 YACFILES/F2.MOV
8baf14d294f8694fbcd2498cb3a5dc06 YACFILES/F2F0.MOV
c8ee52d490068c8f204ccb768e4f12ad YACFILES/F2ZWALKA.MOV
72b2f181c992b847692b8757afc4f1b2 YACFILES/F2ZWALKB.MOV
6f76cdbc6a9ae04123e8088cfebe4c64 YACFILES/F3.DIR