Alaska (spacecraft)
The Alaska was a spaceship which crashed into the Dalek Asylum and launched several escape pods to the surface. There were at least two survivors: one of was named Harvey, who died soon after on the frigid surface and was reanimated by the nanocloud field, becoming a Dalek puppet along with the other crew members who died on impact. The other was Oswin Oswald, who instead used a ladder to descend below the surface of the planet, but was captured and fully converted into a Dalek. However, she managed to retain her human consciousness within a delusion of life (believing she had set up camp in the cockpit of the Alaska), and it was this humanity that caused her to hack the Daleks' databanks in the real world, deleting all Dalek memory of the Doctor. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
The two crew members who survived the crash, Harvey and Oswin Oswald each share the middle name or surname of Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963, the day before Doctor Who premiered with An Unearthly Child. The Seventh Doctor and Ace were at 76 Totter's Lane and the Coal Hill School during the assasination and the series premiere the next day. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks). Exactly twenty-five years later [Earth's perspective], the Seventh Doctor attributed the assassination to the Nemesis comet. (TV: Silver Nemesis) The Ninth Doctor witnessed the assassination, standing steps away from the President at Dealey Plaza in Dallas as the shots were fired. (TV: Rose; WEB: Defending the Earth!) Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest is reported on the front page of a newspaper on the 23rd. (TV: The Cambridge Spy)
