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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X-1 Classic Science Fiction Radio Show

A mysterious visitor, named Graffious, to the Broderick Detective Agency, in downtown New York, hires Detective Broderick and his assistant “Iron Man” Doolan to find the Martian Embassy. Both Broderick and Doolan think Graffious is crazy and start to throw him out of their office. But Graffious flashes a $500.00 bank note and suddenly they are all ears.

Grafiius explains that he is an eccentric that believes that if the Martians were on Earth they would be here only as a prelude to an invasion. That if they are indeed on Earth they would have their base “embassy” in New York the center of economic and political activity. Their Embassy would act as a listening post to gather intelligence for their planned invasion.

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Dimension X

This is the story of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles and is of the Fourth Mars Expedition. The previous three Mars Expedition’s had all failed with the rocketships landing on Mars then after 24 hours of landing no further contact with them was made.

Our story of the Fourth Expedition begins as they make their landing on the surface of Mars. After landing they send out a scouting party, lead by the crew’s physician, Hathaway and assisted by archaeologist Spender, to a nearby Martian city. Meanwhile the rest of the crew remain near the ship awaiting the return of the Hathaway search party and are gathering firewood against the cold Martian evening.

Hathaway and Spender’s search party returns and reports that all of the Martians have died of chickenpox (most likely brought by one of the earlier three expeditions). In a celebratory fashion the Captain authorizes alcoholic beverages to be issued and the crew began partying and celebrating the end of the Martians.

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Prolific Classic Space Travel Actor Morris Ankrum

Space Travel Hero Role: Morris Ankrum was a versatile actor who began acting late in life and who specialized in playing roles of senior governement officials. This was especially true in his many roles as a General in charge of dealing with alien invasions, most memorably as Colonel Fielding in the classic 1953 movie Invaders from Mars.

Space Travel Bio: Born Morris Nussbaum in Danville, Illinois, Ankrum’s originally began his career in academics. After graduating from USC with a law degree, he went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he became involved in the drama department and eventually began teaching drama and directing at the Pasadena Playhouse.

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Space Patrol Show Logo

As our story opens Commander Corey and Cadet Happy are onboard the Space Battle Cruiser Terra V, en route to Lowell City, Mars to meet with Assistant Security Chief Tonga. Tonga has been on Mars for several weeks on a special assignment by Space Patrol Security Chief Major Robertson to investigate the theft of critical materials of government and private manufacturing plants.

Corey and Happy are to meet Tonga at a library in a microfilm viewing room where Tonga will brief the Commander on the findings of her investigation so far.

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1953 Movie Abbott and Costello Go To Mars

While working at a missile base, simple-minded maintenance men Orville (Lou Costello) and Lester (Bud Abbott) help load supplies onto a rocketship. While onboard, Orville inadvertently launch the rocketship with themselves aboard. After a wild ride around New York City (the Statue of Liberty ducks when the rocket heads her way), Lester and Orville land in the outskirts of New Orleans, where Mardi Gras is in progress.

They exit the ship and witness “hideous creatures”, which are actually costumed celebrants, and conclude that they have landed on Mars. Meanwhile, two escaped convicts, Harry the Horse (Jack Kruschen) and Mugsy (Horace McMahon), discover and enter the rocketship, put on spare spacesuits, and head into New Orleans and rob a bank.

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Journey into Space

Space Travel Hero Role:
Andrew Faulds was the actor who played Captain Jet Morgan In the classic BBC radio serial of the 1950′s “Journey Into Space .”

Space Travel Bio:
After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948 but first came to a wider public recognition playing Jet Morgan in Charles Chilton’s radio drama Journey Into Space on the BBC Light Programme.

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Dimension X

The Dimension X production of Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles is a compilation of several of his Martian Chronicles short stories, weaved into a single storyline. Includes abbreviated versions of “Rocket Summer”, “Ylla”, “–and the Moon be Still as Bright”, “The Settlers”, “The Locusts”, “The Shore”, “The Off Season”, “There Will Come Soft Rains”, and “The Million-Year Picnic”.

Our story opens in a wintry small town in Ohio in January 1999 when a flooding sea of hot hair crosses the land. A little girl explains it is “Rocket Summer” where nearby a rocket launches toward Mars.

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Cast of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century

This, the first episode in the new 1939 series of Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, opens in the capital city of 25th century America, Niagara. We find Buck in Dr. Huer’s laboratory with Wilma Deering. Buck has just been hypnotized by Dr Huer’s Electro-Hypnotic Ray. He is lying asleep under the Electro-Hypno-Mentalophone. This device will allow someone to hear what a person is thinking by putting what they are thinking on a speaker.

To explain how the Electro-Hypno-Mentalophone works to Wilma, Dr. Huer demonstrates by asking Buck to tell them how he came to the 25th century.

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1953 Sci-Fi Movie Invaders from Mars

One morning a young boy (Jimmy Hunt), David McLean, wakes up early to view an astral event through his telescope but what David actually sees is a huge flying saucer crash into the sand dunes just beyond the fence of his house. He awakens his father who thinks it was just a bad dream but goes and looks anyway. When he doesn’t return, David’s Mother calls the Police. Officers Jackson and Blaine arrive and head out back to see if they can find George.

Meanwhile David’s Dad finally returns the next morning with a lame excuse and a strange mark on his neck. But George is no longer a loving father, Where once he was cheerful and affectionate, he’s now sullen and snarlingly rude. David is convinced that aliens have done something to his dad so decides to keep an eye on the field when he sees a young girl named Kathy Wilson sucked under a stretch of sand that he becomes convinced of it.

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