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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Journey into Space

In our last episode the crew of the Luna now stranded on Earth of as much as 20 thousand years ago are preparing to launch the Spaceship Luna when they took one last scan around the ship with their Televiewer and they saw what must be the “creatures of the forest” the Time Traveler has been going on about. Only now that they see them and realize that they are men, prehistoric men. Their ancestors!

This episode opens with the crew of the Spaceship Luna are watching the “creatures of the forest” gathering about a hundred yards off from the ship. Using their Televiewer they scan the sky for the alien ships who will be needed to assist them on their departure from the earth.

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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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Journey into Space

In the previous episode of our story Operation Luna episode 10 Jet, Mitch, Doc and Lemmy are in the city of the Time Traveling stranger and have been lead through the city to the strangers quarters. They were standing outside his door when it opened and they peered inside the dome and suddenly they all exclaim as if the saw something horrible and Lemmy yells out in horror and runs off screaming. The others call after him to come back.

We pick up the story with Jet going after Lemmy and bringing him back. Their initial shock and horror of seeing the alien has subsided and they are standing around the outside of the now closed door where the alien is located. They are discussing among themselves what they saw and they appear to agree that it appeared like a giant man sized armadillo standing up on it’s hind legs.

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X-1 Classic Science Fiction Radio Show

The Federal Bureau of Missing Persons is broadcasting it’s latest coded bulletin transmission with a list of recently missing persons when they receive a CQ (SOS) radio message from a crank calling earth who claims to be calling from the Moon.

Triangulating to locate the offender, radio operator Charlie Stafford discovers that the message did in fact come from the Moon from a man identifying himself as Cornelius Otterburn. Of course the call is dismissed, until a minor member of the Federal Bureau of Missing Persons begins to suspect that the call is related to a strange series of disappearances over the past several years.

Charlie Stafford tells Federal Bureau of Missing Persons records clerk Henry Stinton who recognizes the name and decides to investigate the name Cornelius Otterburn and finds only one person with that name has gone missing and he was an Atomic Physicist who had disappeared 5 years previously on June 5th 1945.

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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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Journey into Space

In the last episode of our story Operation Luna episode 9 Jet, Mitch, Doc and Lemmy are airborne in the strange aliens spaceship, when a 3-D Televiewer turns on and they can see the country side passing under them. After a while a small city comes into view then passes on by as they continue to travel for quite some time then the ship begins to land. We join them in this episode just as they are landing.

After a short time they re-establish contact with the mysterious alien. He shows them an image on the 3-D Televiewer and Doc recognizes that he had seen that image before on the moon. The alien explains that it was one of several images they had transmitted to the earthmen in an attempt to open communication with them.

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Journey into Space

In the last episode of our story Operation Luna episode 8 Jet, Mitch, Doc and Lemmy are investigating a mysterious ship which has landed near Spaceship Luna. As they are about to approach the mysterious ship a hatch opens up. They decide to go investigate and as a precaution put their spacesuits on. After switching on their helmet radios they hear a strange voice calling Hello Luna! They conclude that there must be someone inside the ship.

The strange voice calling the Luna crew is in English and assures the crew that they only want to help them. The strange voice asks them to come into his spaceship but Lemmy balks and asks that he show himself. The voice replies that he can’t and explains that he is not inside the ship. He further explains that they are in danger if they remain where they are. He assures them that if they get into his ship they will not be harmed.

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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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Journey into Space

In the last episode of our story Operation Luna episode 7 Jet, Mitch, Doc and Lemmy, after over a week on the strange planet, the rain had finally stopped and the sky cleared. Studying the position of the stars, Jet has come to the conclusion that they are in fact on Earth, but they’ve time traveled at least thirteen thousand years either ahead in time or backward in time. There is no way to know which.

While discussing their situation there comes some wrapping on their hull. They try to see who or what was wrapping on their hull but it is night and it is too dark outside.

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