'Battlestar' creator gets new sci-fi pilot

Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D Moore has written a two-hour pilot for a new show set on the Earth's first starship.

A crew of a dozen are aboard Phaeton on a ten-year mission to a distant solar system in the pilot, called Virtuality. To ease the journey NASA has loaded the ship with virtual reality equipment. The crew can take on other identities and "travel" to other destinations - until a mysterious "bug" appears in the system.

Universal Media Studios is making the pilot for Fox, with Moore also serving as an executive producer. Production is expected to start in July.

UMS president Katherine Pope said: "It's very much about what's fantasy and what's reality - what we do to escape our lives and what actually institutes our lives, and are these things very different."