American TV series or program
Men Into Space
(a.k.a.
Space Challenge
in later US syndication) is an American
black-and-white
science fiction
television series, produced by
Ziv Television Programs, Inc.
, that was first broadcast by
CBS
from September 30, 1959, to September 7, 1960. The series depicts future efforts by the
United States Air Force
to explore and develop outer space. The series' star,
William Lundigan
, played Col. Edward McCauley.
Scenarios
[
edit
]
Men Into Space
was not set in a specified time period, but clues dropped in the scripts indicated that it took place between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. The first
Moon landing
would have occurred circa 1975. Some props were futuristic (such as a forerunner of today's real-life
LCD TVs
), but the show's Earth clothing and environs, including
automobiles
,
telephones
, and other machines, were decidedly late 1950s. The program aired in the year just prior to the beginning of human spaceflight, with
Vostok 1
and the
Project Mercury
launching crewed spacecraft in 1961.
[1]
Men Into Space
was somewhat unusual for a TV action series in that it had numerous recurring characters, but only one protagonist, Col. Edward McCauley (William Lundigan), who was in all 38 of the series' episodes.
Tyler McVey
appeared in seven episodes as Major General Norgath.
Ron Foster
appeared five times as
Lieutenant
Neil Templeton.
Joyce Taylor
had a recurring role in eight episodes as Col. McCauley's wife, Mary McCauley.
McCauley was a sort of "everyman" character who was viewed in the show as the most experienced and illustrious
astronaut
. As depicted in the
scripts
, the low-key but decisive McCauley was ubiquitous, assigned to every important
space mission
over at least a decade, including the earliest human flights, the first flight to the
Moon
, many additional lunar landings and Moon base construction missions, construction of a
space station
, and two flights to
Mars
(neither succeeded, and folklore has it that plans for a never-aired second season would have focused on further missions to Mars and beyond).
[1]
In many episodes, the astronauts were faced with accidents or technical problems that required innovation. The program was not idealistic; missions sometimes failed and astronauts sometimes died. For example, a scientist-astronaut stricken with a
coronary thrombosis
while exploring the Moon was not expected to survive the
G-forces
of the return flight, so his comrades stowed the space-suited patient in a steel drum filled with water, to cushion him during launch. A "
Space Race
" episode involved spacecraft from the USA and the
USSR
starting out almost simultaneously on the first Mars mission, with the American spacecraft aborting its effort in order to rescue the Soviet crew after their spacecraft experienced problems.
[2]
The series included an episode whose plot essentially paralleled the ill-fated
Apollo 13
mission's explosion in space more than a decade later and another that was an uncanny foretelling of the accident that befell the real
Gemini 8
mission in 1966.
Scripts often considered the human factor, and while action was the show's forte, humor and romance were part of the mix.
Men Into Space
predicted women astronauts and scientists, as well as married couples in space.
[1]
Episode list
[
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]
Nº
|
Title
|
Air date
|
1
| "Moon Probe"
| September 30, 1959
(
1959-09-30
)
|
2
| "Moon Landing"
| October 7, 1959
(
1959-10-07
)
|
3
| "Building a Space Station"
| October 21, 1959
(
1959-10-21
)
|
4
| "Water Tank Rescue"
| October 28, 1959
(
1959-10-28
)
|
5
| "Lost Missile"
| November 4, 1959
(
1959-11-04
)
|
6
| "Moonquake"
| November 11, 1959
(
1959-11-11
)
|
7
| "Space Trap"
| November 18, 1959
(
1959-11-18
)
|
8
| "Asteroid"
| November 25, 1959
(
1959-11-25
)
|
9
| "Edge of Eternity"
| December 2, 1959
(
1959-12-02
)
|
10
| "Burnout"
| December 9, 1959
(
1959-12-09
)
|
11
| "First Woman on the Moon"
| December 16, 1959
(
1959-12-16
)
|
12
| "Christmas on the Moon"
| December 23, 1959
(
1959-12-23
)
|
13
| "Quarantine"
| December 30, 1959
(
1959-12-30
)
|
14
| "Tankers in Space"
| January 6, 1960
(
1960-01-06
)
|
15
| "Sea of Stars"
| January 13, 1960
(
1960-01-13
)
|
16
| "A Handful of Hours"
| January 20, 1960
(
1960-01-20
)
|
17
| "Earthbound"
| January 27, 1960
(
1960-01-27
)
|
18
| "Caves of the Moon"
| February 3, 1960
(
1960-02-03
)
|
19
| "Dateline: Moon"
| February 10, 1960
(
1960-02-10
)
|
20
| "Moon Cloud"
| February 17, 1960
(
1960-02-17
)
|
21
| "Contraband"
| March 2, 1960
(
1960-03-02
)
|
22
| "Dark of the Sun"
| March 9, 1960
(
1960-03-09
)
|
23
| "Verdict in Orbit"
| March 16, 1960
(
1960-03-16
)
|
24
| "Is There Another Civilization?"
| March 23, 1960
(
1960-03-23
)
|
25
| "Shadows on the Moon"
| March 30, 1960
(
1960-03-30
)
|
26
| "Flash in the Sky"
| April 6, 1960
(
1960-04-06
)
|
27
| "Lunar Secret"
| April 13, 1960
(
1960-04-13
)
|
28
| "Voice of Infinity"
| April 20, 1960
(
1960-04-20
)
|
29
| "From Another World"
| April 27, 1960
(
1960-04-27
)
|
30
| "Emergency Mission"
| May 4, 1960
(
1960-05-04
)
|
31
| "Beyond the Stars"
| May 11, 1960
(
1960-05-11
)
|
32
| "Mission to Mars"
| May 25, 1960
(
1960-05-25
)
|
33
| "Moon Trap"
| June 1, 1960
(
1960-06-01
)
|
34
| ""Flare Up"
| August 17, 1960
(
1960-08-17
)
|
35
| "Into the Sun"
| August 24, 1960
(
1960-08-24
)
|
36
| "The Sun Never Sets"
| August 31, 1960
(
1960-08-31
)
|
37
| "Mystery Satellite"
| September 7, 1960
(
1960-09-07
)
|
38
| "Flight to the Red Planet"
| September 14, 1960
(
1960-09-14
)
|
Artwork
[
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]
Men Into Space
was advertised as being (for its era) an extremely accurate preview of human spaceflight, based on scientific studies and buttressed by technical assistance from the USAF's
ballistic missile
and space medicine offices. The spacecraft designs, however, veered inconsistently between early 1950s
Wernher Von Braun
concept vehicles, and later on, totally scaled-down and more practical spacecraft proposals. Visual backdrops and conceptual designs of spacecraft, space stations, and a
Moon base
depended somewhat on contributions from notable
astronomical
and science fiction artist
Chesley Bonestell
.
[3]
The series also utilized extensive
documentary
footage of early missile launches, notably the
Atlas missile
.
[4]
It evoked the earlier
Disney
space exploration documentaries, which in turn owed their look and feel to a widely read, early 1950s series on the subject in the old
Collier's Weekly
magazine, where Bonestell's art also held sway. At one point in production, a scale model and poster of an Atlas-derived missile design was built with the series spacecraft as its payload, with publicity photos of Lundigen holding the model in front of the large poster.
[4]
Several scenes used documentary footage from the canceled
Navaho missile
program to depict spacecraft landings on the desert runway. The distinctive design of the
North American X-10
(different from the close up depictions of the series spacecraft) can be seen in the desert landing sequences.
Prediction of later technologies
[
edit
]
Men Into Space
used for its plots many technical and human problems anticipated by engineers and planners. For example, the show depicted attempts to refuel spacecraft by tanker in orbit, construction of a
space telescope
, an experiment to dispose of high level
atomic waste
by launching it into the
Sun
, the search for life-sustaining frozen
Lunar water
, and exploration and destruction of an
asteroid
whose orbit threatened Earth. In two different episodes, the series even speculated about exo-fossil
extraterrestrial life
discovered while exploring a distant asteroid and about ancient Earth-orbiting spaceship debris belonging to a non-human, space-faring civilization. Although the series was modestly budgeted, it was cleverly mounted with what, for its era, were very good special effects helmed by Louis DeWitt. Even decades later, the series can still be watched and appreciated for its attention to detail and accurate physics.
[1]
Scientific accuracy
[
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]
A narrator explained in nearly every episode why the astronauts needed
magnetic boots
to walk in or upon their
free-falling
spacecraft, how a jet thruster backpack could propel an astronaut through the
vacuum
of space, why a wrong
angle of attack
could doom a spacecraft upon
atmospheric
re-entry
, and so forth. The spacecraft in the program were shown gliding to a powerless landing on a dry lake bed, just like the real
Space Shuttle
nearly 25 years later. Footage of these landings used documentary film of the
SM-64 Navaho
cruise missile landing at
Edwards AFB
.
[2]
On the other hand,
dramatic license
held sway on soundtracks, which repeatedly depicted sound in the airless vacuum of space: airlocks hummed, rockets roared, explosions boomed, and footsteps on the Moon's surface could be heard. Spacesuits being worn by the actors did not expand when exposed to the vacuum of space, as they would later during actual space walks.
[4]
Production notes
[
edit
]
The program was produced by
Ziv Television Programs, Inc.
, whose other notable series included
Sea Hunt
. The theme and recurring background music were written and conducted by
David Rose
. The series was produced by
Lewis J. Rachmil
.
[1]
Among the guest stars was
Keith Larsen
of the CBS series
Brave Eagle
and
The Aquanauts
.
Joyce Taylor
played the role of Mary McCauley in the series, but
Angie Dickinson
played the role in the original pilot episode. Other guest stars include
James Best
,
Whit Bissell
,
Paul Burke
,
James Coburn
,
Paul Comi
,
James Drury
,
Joe Flynn
,
Arthur Franz
,
Nancy Gates
,
Allison Hayes
,
Murray Hamilton
,
Brett King
,
Werner Klemperer
,
Gavin MacLeod
,
Joe Maross
,
Donald May
,
Bek Nelson
,
Simon Oakland
,
Denver Pyle
,
Robert Reed
,
William Schallert
,
Warren Stevens
,
Marshall Thompson
,
Harry Townes
, and
Robert Vaughn
.
Spacesuit
costumes and
special-effects
footage of
space vehicles
(shot with miniature models) were later re-used in
The Outer Limits
, the science fiction film
The Phantom Planet
, and the 1969 drama
Midnight Cowboy
(the space opera playing on the movie screen during Joe Buck's tryst with a bespeckled young man is footage from Men into Space episode 1). The spacesuits also bore a strong resemblance to the spacesuits worn in the first half of the one-season comedy series
It's About Time
. The pilot episode used real, high-altitude
pressure suits
developed by the
United States Navy
, but most of the space suits used in the series were
US Air Force
designs.
[1]
In the UK,
Men Into Space
was shown on the
BBC
as a children's series. It was programmed in an early Saturday evening slot that would later be filled by
Doctor Who
.
Novelization
[
edit
]
A paperback novelization of the TV series, written by science fiction writer
Murray Leinster
, was published in 1960.
[5]
In popular culture
[
edit
]
In the early 1960s,
Ideal Toy Company
manufactured and sold a toy space helmet styled after the one worn by the main character, Col. Edward McCauley.
[6]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Lori Maguire; Margaret Weitkamp (August 17, 2016).
The Cold War and Entertainment Television
. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 203?206.
ISBN
978-1-4438-9925-3
.
- ^
a
b
Gary Westfahl (March 27, 2012).
The Spacesuit Film: A History, 1918?1969
. McFarland. pp. 54?.
ISBN
978-0-7864-8999-2
.
- ^
Melvin H. Schuetz (1999).
A Chesley Bonestell Space Art Chronology
. Universal-Publishers. pp. 63?.
ISBN
978-1-58112-829-1
.
- ^
a
b
c
John C. Fredriksen (December 2012).
Men Into Space
. BearManor Media.
ISBN
978-1-59393-231-2
.
- ^
"Pulp Novel, 'Men Into Space', Murray Leinster"
.
airandspace.si.edu
. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
. Retrieved
April 15,
2018
.
- ^
Toy, Space Helmet, "Men Into Space"
, archived from
the original
on March 15, 2018
External links
[
edit
]