Spacemens Luck

 

Where Tom Corbett, Captain Video, CMDR Corry and Other Spacemen Still Live

The state of America’s manned space travel program today is in disarray. With the US having no spaceship in it’s fleet capable of carrying personnel into space. And the only other means for American’s to get into space is via the Russian space fleet which has been temporarily (Hopefully) de-certified due to the failure of last weeks cargo flight to the ISS space station.

The reason we are in this position is because our national leadership has failed to keep their eye on the ball over the last ten or fifteen years and allowed our space program to decline to the point it is today.

What prompted me to right this article is I came across a classic failed pilot for a CBS TV series from 1959 named “Destination Space”. The movie over all is standard science fiction for day. But what I found interesting was the speech before a congressional sub-committee criticizing the congress and other leaders on their leadership in the space program. It is to my knowledge the first time that space travel was shown in a plausible political context that is relevant to this day. A leader of the congressional sub-committee suggests that space travel was not just a technological triumph and a great adventure but also costly and that financial justification is an important consideration as well.

I regret that there was only this one pilot episode and not at least one season of the show made. The film used a lot of stock footage from the earlier 1955 space travel movie “Conquest of Space”. Specifically the views of the “The Wheel” (space station) and the spaceship which is bound for the moon. In the source movie of the stock footage “Conquest of Space” A team of American astronauts leave their space station on the first mission to Mars.

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1951 Movie When Worlds Collide

David Randall is a carefree ladies man and skilled pilot who finds he has been let in on the greatest and most terrible secret in the world when he is paid to deliver some mysterious pictures from one eminent astronomer to another.

The story begins at a remote observatory in South Africa where the astronomer, Dr. Emery Bronson discovers that two “heavenly bodies” are on a collision course with Earth. One, called Zyra will pass close enough to wreak havoc on land and sea, while the other, called Bellus will actually strike the planet and destroy it days later.

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Dimension X

This episode of Dimension X was developed as a means of advanced promotion of the George Pal’s 1950 movie of Destination Moon. The Dimension X episode was based on an advanced copy of the screenplay.

Like the movie the story was based on the legendary Robert A. Heinlein’s novel “Rocket Ship Galileo” (1947) depicting man’s first flight to the moon.

In this radio adaption our story begins later in the story when General Thayer arrives at the rocket launch site to announce their permission to test the atomic motor was denied. They then anticipate that a court order will soon follow preventing them from launching and prepare for immediate launch and sure enough a court officer arrives and our crew launch to the moon.

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George Pals 1950 Destination Moon Movie

Destination Moon is available here for watching at Spacemen’s Luck. For more information and a review of Destination Moon go here:

Production Credits:
Directed by: Irving Pichel
Produced by: George Pal
Screenplay by: Robert A. Heinlein
Length: 92 Minutes

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Journey into Space

The first episode of the re-recorded and re-produced Operation Luna series was broadcast in 1958. Originally broadcast as episode 5 in the first broadcast of the Operation Luna series in 1953. This episode also introduces us to the four main characters of the series, Jet Morgan, Stephen “Mitch” Mitchell, Doc Matthews and Lemmy Barnet.

This first episode kicks off on October 19, 1965 (in the far future) as the rocket ship Luna blasts off on it’s atomic motors, from a space port in the Australian Outback, for the Moon with Jet, Doc, Mitch and Lemmy aboard. Soon after escape velocity from earth is made radio contact with Earth is lost.

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Picture of a Classic Rocketship of the 1950s

Welcome to this new category for Classic Space Travel here at Spacemen’s Luck. Space Travel Movies of the 1950′s and 1960′s is important for those of you, like myself, who got your vision of space travel from the radio and TV of the 1950′s.

In the series “Space Travel Movies” I will have show descriptions, cast members, production credits and plot lines for movies made during the 1950′s and 1960′s. Additionally, I will be adding my own reviews for these classics. Of course I am biased toward any and all science fiction space travel movies, serials, TV shows, radio episodes and books created during those golden days of space travel.

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