The hit Science Channel television show “Meteorite Men” is back for a third season. The season premiers on Monday, November 28th at 10:00 p.m. with a trip to the Morasko crater field in Poland where, I’m told, goats turned up in some unusual places. I caught up with Steve Arnold, who, along with Geoff Notkin, is one of the stars of “Meteorite Men”, to discuss some of the highlights from this season’s shooting.
This is your third season of “Meteorite Men,” what changes have you made for the new season?
Steve: Probably the biggest difference is that we slow down, just a bit, to “smell the roses” this season. Traveling around the world, we get to see and experience more than just digging up meteorites. We haven’t turned this season into “Two Idiots Abroad” (maybe for Season 4), but our audience liked the lunch scene from Sweden last year, so we establish the context of where we are a bit more.
Last year, you told me that you and Geoff sometimes have to invent new pieces of equipment to help in the search for meteorites. What is the wackiest or most unusual thing you’ve built or used to help find meteorites?
Steve: This season, at one location we needed to pull one of our new super sensitive detectors behind our truck, but the length of the extension cable from the detector brain to the coil was not long enough to get the coil far enough from the back of the truck without detecting the truck itself. I came up with a way, in theory, to make it work. I don’t want to spoil any surprises, but people will know it when they see it.
In season two, you took the hunt for meteorites global visiting such distant places as Chile, Australia and Sweden. Where did the hunt for meteorites take you this year?
Steve: We head to Russia in one episode, and I hate to feed into stereotypes, like that Russians like to drink a lot of vodka, but they do. We head to Poland for two episodes at two strewnfield locations. Both have a rich European history in addition to cosmic treasures underground. We revisit a couple of our favorite locations from previous seasons, Sweden and Canada, and a few new ones here in the United States, as well.
For season three you’ve added Per Larsson as your Director of Photography. Larsson spent ten years with “The Amazing Race” where he won an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Show. How did his involvement change the way you approached the filming of season three of “Meteorite Men”?
Steve: We have not seen any of the footage from Season 3, and we won’t until each episode airs. In that respect, we are right there with the audience taking it all in. Per Larsson brought a confidence in shooting and directing. Like “The Amazing Race,” much of our show is shot with the camera operators running backwards in front of us, trying to anticipate what might happen next so they can capture it all. We went to some amazing places this season, and capturing the grand scenery or the finer details of these beautiful locations is really an art.Each “artist” does it a little differently. Sometimes it is the little things that make the difference between a good and a great viewing experience. Meanwhile, Geoff and I have the big things to worry about while shooting, like finding and digging rocks out of the ground.
Do you ever have difficulty with local authorities in other countries when you tell them you want to look for space rocks or when you try take them out of other countries through customs?
Steve: Importing ourselves and our equipment can be a challenge, especially in Russia this time around. Exporting meteorites can be a challenge in some places, as well. Some nations require export permits, and more than once meteorites looked strange to the x-ray equipment, so they get pulled out for closer examination. Some meteorites can fit the description of a “weapon” to some TSA agents, so we can’t always carry on our rocks with us.
The season premier of “Meteorite Men” airs tonight at 10:00 p.m. on the Science Channel. What should viewers look for when they tune in?
Steve: Tonight we head to Morasko, Poland. Morasko is the home to an amazing and unique crater field that also saw military battles in WWI and WWII. We get special permission to hunt in the preserve area with new equipment that lets us detect deeper than anyone has hunted before.
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Brad Sylvester writes about the space program for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. Watching the Apollo missions through the static on a small black and white television sparked a lifelong interest in the space sciences for him. Since then, he has spent 40 years watching improvements in the technologies of space travel and our understanding of the universe.