ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Men Into Space S01E37 Mystery Satellite

The intro lets the viewer know that the story is about a unidentified satellite which orbits the Earth and might be of alien origin.

Colonel McCauley and his crew are in Earth orbit when they detect an object which parallels their trajectory . . . even when they change course!

John Archer (Destination Moon) is the ranking officer at Ground Control who confers with McCauley during the initial encounter before they resume course for the Moon and leave the object behind.

Soon thereafter, a rocket from the Moonbase is traveling back to Earth when the mysterious object is encountered again, and they give chase! They're so determined to catch it that they don't realize they're dipping down into the atmosphere while they using up the fuel they'll need to land.

The crew of the ship gets close enough for visual contact, and right in middle of a transmission when the captain was about to describe it, the transmissions ceased . . .





John Archer radios McCauley at Moobase that the ship burned up in the atmosphere.

McCauley orders the spacecraft on the Moon to be manned and kept on permanent standby, ready to launch at a moments notice.

When Archer is informed that the object has been sighted leaving Earth orbit and headed toward the Moon, he informs McCauley of this. McCauley and two other astronauts blast off, hoping to parallel the objects course.

In a tense scene, McCauly's ship is literally chased by the object as they head straight towards the Moon. When McCauley orders his pilot to cut power, it causes the object to crash into the Moon.

Unfortunately, guys, the conclusion of the episode is very disappointing, so be ready for a letdown.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Men Into Space S01E38 Flight to the Red Planet

Marshall Thomas is McCauley's pilot on this unaired episode that would have been the last one in the series.

It's a great episode as far as the FX go, such as the imaginative way it portrays Phobos. Here's two screen grabs from the episode.







But here's what poor little Phobos really looks like.





However, the episode makes some bad mistakes with it's science.

The ship lands on Phobos, and they state that it's magnetic, so they won't have to use magnet boots.

Ummm . . . what?

That sounds like their saying Phobo's magnet field is acting like gravity!

The scientist in charge of making observations of Mars views it through the telescope they brought, and he claims the canals are in fact waterways with green areas along the banks.

By 1960, when this episode was made, scientist no longer thought there was any chance Mars could have canals filled with water, or that there were any cultivate areas created by intelligent beings.

Still, the episode is enjoyable, and would have served as a fine season finale for this series if it had not been cancelled.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Men Into Space S01E07 Space Trap

And exciting episode in which McCauley must rescue the crew of a mission recturning from the Moon after they loose consciousness because the carbon dioxide scrubbers failed.

Concerning the science in the episode, it's a bit questionable. The scientists in the group, Dr. Charles Cooper, was on the Moon to collect spores that would prove there was life on the Moon.

That sounds silly today, but when the Apollo 11 crew returned from the Moon, they were quarantine for 21 days!

Dr. Cooper was played by Peter Hansen, the handsome young doctor in When Worlds Collide. Mr. Hansen went on to play doctors and scientists in numerous productions, including one episode of Space Patrol, one episode of The Outer Limits, and six episodes of Science Fiction Theatre!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Men Into Space S01E25 Shadows of the Moon

This is the one episode I remember the most about from my days as a twelve-year-old science fiction fan. It includes a Moon mission during which the astronauts discuss a strange rock formation which looks like a face on the side of a mountain!





The idea that the Moon might have once been inhabited by alien beings who carved the strange face puts a few of the guys on edge — especially one scientist who wanders into the area near the stone face and suddenly finds himself facing a giant humanoid right in front of him!







Colonel McCauley discovers the solution to the mystery and takes his men back to the spot, where they find a cliff face made of obsidian — volcanic glass which has created a distorted mirror in which the astronaut was frightened by his own reflection!

Even though this episode only teased the viewer with the idea that they're were aliens on the Moon, I still loved it!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

It's been such a long time since I saw these shows (Although your posts have encouraged me to download the series again and start watching them!) but the lack of science accuracy I could rack up to just the level of knowledge at the time. Other inaccuracies I could accept as "dramatic" license in order to tell the story!

One thing that kind of bothered me is that they used Mercury era flightsuits while walking on the Moons' surface. Radiation, extremes in temperature and the air pressure required on the interior all make the suit wrong for Lunar excursions! Not to mention that the regolith and sharp rocks would tear apart the fabric in short order, I'm sure the suits they used were mainly for budgetary reasons.

Still, MIS told good stories in their half hour format and I found them all very enjoyable!
_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Right on all counts, Gord — and it's just the kind of reply I've been hoping for!

Yes, indeed, the viewer has to forgive a great many cost-cutting measures in this otherwise enjoyable series. For example, we constantly see Atlas missiles lifting off, and then the model ship in space is one of the same few they used footage of over and over.

They did do one or two nice FX liftoffs, shot on a dark set to simulate night so they didn't have to give it background.

They had a limited amount of music to use, so we heard the same pieces over and over — just like Star Trek TOS did.

As for not having seen the episodes in a while, please DO watch them on YouTube. Sadly, you've missed your chance to get them from Shout Factory, and the DVDs I bought from them look much better than the YouTube versions.

eBay has a box set, and even though the picture doesn't show the box, the description matches mine in every way.
________________________________

This set contains ALL 38 episodes of this series on 10 discs and are shipped in 2 hardshell DVD cases with case inserts for easy identification . Series name, disc # and episode titles are on each disc. Picture quality is 8 out of 10.
________________________________

I doubt they're copies of the Shout Factory discs, because copies probably wouldn't have the labels on the upper side of the discs, the way mine do.

In view of the fact that the Robby and the Gort toys you sent me are now giving me stern looks, I just ordered the set, and I'll mail it to you after I receive it.

Enjoy!


_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Gord, I've been wondering if the members have avoided repling to my posts for each episode because it meant they have to use the "quote" feature — which some folks have trouble with.

In other words, if they wanted to add a comment to a post on page 2 of this 3-page thread about Men Into Space which pertained to my post about S01E27, they just need to hit the "quote" button on that specific post, then simply cut out all the text except for the part they wanted to reply to!

Then they can add their reply below it!

It's easy. Here's a hypothetical example
________________________________

[Gord Green]

HEY Bud! Much thanks....I'll be looking forward to seeing better copies of one of my favorite shows!

I don't think I ever really told the story why I really came to love this series. It played on (I think) Saturday nights (Maybe Friday?) and that was the night my Mom and Dad loaded my sister and myself off to my Moms' Father and Mothers house to play cards. My sister and I got full run of the TV...Even though it was just a little screen B&W set.

MIS was a not to be missed treat! I believe there was another half hour show on the same night called MAN AND THE CHALLANGE that was also about science oriented adventures. My sis and I would drink our Vernors gingerale and munch on popcorn while we watched these great shows!

Another thing I really liked about MIS was that it used spaceships and not capsules so it really seemed like a serious view of the Space Age to come! I also enjoyed that the series showed a progression from development, testing, and achieving increasingly complex missions!

Presented in a quasi-documentary style, the series chronicled a fictitious U.S. Air Force space program as it progressed from the first manned flight to the first moon landing and, eventually, the first trip to Mars.

The program attempted to be as realistic as possible for its time and limited budget.

The show's "hero" ship -- if there was such a thing -- was an unnamed "winged-bullet" capable of carrying up to four astronauts. This ship made it to the Moon and all the way to Mars!

The most common variant was what is called the "Type 1," which was distinguished by its four engine bells. Another variant, which is called the "Type 2," had only a single engine bell and also spouted a distinctive nose spike.







Launched as the third stage of a three-stage chemically fueled rocket, both the Type 1 and Type 2 made powered landings, although how they landed and/or were recovered was never specified. In some episodes it showed a ship (NOT the MIS ship!) landing on a dry lake bed(Possibly White Sands.).







Both the Type 1 and Type 2 "Men into Space" rocketships frequently appeared via the magic of stock footage on the ABC sci-fi anthology series "The Outer Limits."


_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Wow, what a great story about how you enjoyed Men Into Space! I got a wonderful mental image of you and your sister getting your weekly "science fiction experience" with those two shows.

Gord, have you seen All Sci-Fi's The Man and the Challenge thread? I wish all the episodes of that great show would become available, because I was a fan of that series, too!

On a similar note, George Nader also starred in Shannon, which we also have a thread for. George drove 1961 Buick Special which was equipped with cameras, a dictating machine, tape recorders, weapons, and a mobile phone — decades before cell phones, when car phones were rare. The car required a long whip antenna for the phone.





The 1961 Buick Special is a gorgeous car!

[Bud Brewster]

__________________________________________________

I had to delete several of the YouTube links for episodes of Men into Space because the videos had been removed, dammit!

But Archive.org has all the episodes, and they look as good as the YouTube versions.

Here's the link to the Archive.org site which has the episodes.

Men Into Space on Archive.org

To download each episode, scroll down to —

~ DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

~ Then click on MPEG4

~ Next, scroll down to the episode you want to download.

~ Click on it, and it will begin to play in a small window.

~ Right click on the video window and select "Save Video As" from the menu that drops down. This will download the video to the location you select on your computer.

Yeah, yeah, I know — that sounds complicated. But if a dumbo like me can do it on regular basis, anybody else can too.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[orzel-w]

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

I built AMT models of Buicks that had those holes, and I loved them! I knew they were just decorative elements of the Buicks, but they were consistent with the "Jet Age" nature of cars during that exciting era!

I'll confess, however, that I never noticed that some Buicks had three holes, while others had four!
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)