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  • There was a time-machine (or teleportation machine) in a spherical geodesic shape, made of metal with large panels, it was dark grey or dark blue.
  • A pilot used the machine while wearing a spacesuit, the machine shook violently when activated. The pilot was a white american man.
  • He was either transformed into the body of a child or replaced with a child, perhaps his younger self, early teenage years. It might be the case that the spacesuit was lost and an unrelated child found it.
  • The child walks home down a sidewalk in the oversized spacesuit; This was in a suburb somewhere with a hedgerow on the side of the sidewalk
  • The spacesuit had a very large rim around the neck, and correspondingly large hemispherical helmet, it was very baggy on the child.
  • I think after the machine's operation the pilot's coworkers started searching for him.

I think I watched this in the late 90s or early 00s on British television, although I'm quite sure it was an American movie, probably from the 90s.

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  • Welcome to Science Fiction & Fantasy! This question would be improved by going through the checklists here; How to ask a good story-ID question?
    – Valorum
    Oct 29, 2019 at 6:39
  • Thanks, @Valorum, I've added some more details.
    – EndOfAllThings
    Oct 29, 2019 at 7:20
  • How did he get out of the facility if he had co-workers?
    – Valorum
    Oct 29, 2019 at 7:21
  • That's a good question and I'm not sure I remember the answer. I suspect he was transported away by the machine without the possibility of his coworkers intervening. Keep asking questions and perhaps we'll come up with an original plot for a movie!
    – EndOfAllThings
    Oct 29, 2019 at 7:27
  • The bluish geodesic sphere piloted by a person in a spacesuit makes me think of the TV series Seven Days, but I don't know if any of the episodes match in the other particulars.
    – starpilotsix
    Oct 29, 2019 at 9:39

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This seems to be an episode of the 1998-2001 TV series Seven Days, in which a government project exists that can send someone back in time, but only seven days.

The sphere you remember is the Backstep Sphere (or Chronosphere) and as you can see it matches the description:

Backstep Sphere, a geodesic sphere in deep blue

The main time traveller routinely uses a space suit in his journeys... the sphere also shakes a great deal and requires piloting talent:

Headshot of Cmdr Parker in a space suit

Although the sphere normally projects Frank back seven days, at which point everything sent back in time (the sphere, the pilot, the astronauts) disappear from where they were in the past and are replaced by the new versions. As such, his co-workers typically only learn a backstep has occurred when he and the sphere disappear, and then immediately start looking for him because they know something big must be about to happen.

Of course, being an episodic TV show, things frequently go wrong in unusual ways that mess with the formula. The specific events you remember seem to be from S01E11, "HAARP Attack" in which Frank is regressed to a childlike state after travelling back.

You can see in this video the journey, and him meeting a child in the playground immediately after arriving. His co-workers (searching the area) later (at approximately 26 minutes into the video) find the child with the over-sized-for-him spacesuit, who took it after Frank abandoned it:

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    By the way, as E Lee Zimmerman correctly identified, this series was recently (finally) released on DVD. Fans of this show may be interested to know that.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Oct 29, 2019 at 15:52
  • @LightnessRaceswithMonica Wow. Now there's an incredibly delayed DVD release. I think I remember back in 2001 wondering if it wasn't renewed due to there being no good way to deal with the dissonance of the real 9/11 (since the show always dealt with heading off such disasters), but Wikipedia & other sources indicate it was already canceled for unrelated reasons, sparing it, like newspaper-from-future "Early Edition", from dealing with 9/11
    – Jacob C.
    Oct 29, 2019 at 22:19
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    @JacobC. Indeed! It was actually cancelled mostly due to personality clashes behind the scenes, but its niche nature left it in limbo until literally this year, much to my own chagrin. I asked Scott Gilman (the musical composer) a few years back whether a formal soundtrack might ever be forthcoming and sadly (but not surprisingly) he was unable to say anything that the rights holders were not saying: my remote hope is that now that a DVD has been released, (cont.)
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Oct 29, 2019 at 23:47
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    (cont.) that may be more likely, but as VIE is well-known for official-but-third-party DVD salvations I don't think the DVD release speaks to the likelihood of an accompanying soundtrack release.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Oct 29, 2019 at 23:47

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