In his latter career, he directed 14 episodes of the science fiction series
Space: 1999 (1975), in which a large explosion propels the moon out of Earth's orbit hurtling into space and essentially becoming a spaceship for the Moonbase Alpha scientists stranded from the disaster, that event in the storyline occurring on the (then futuristic) date September 13, 1999 as indicated at the start of every episode. Crichton would die one day after that date, on September 14, 1999. Ironically, the 9/11 tragedies would occur two years minus two days after the date in the series.