Men Into Space
Encyclopedia
Men Into Space is an American sci-fi
television series broadcast from September 30, 1959 to September 7, 1960 by CBS
which depicted future efforts by the United States Air Force
to explore and develop outer space. The black-and-white
filmed show starred William Lundigan
as Col. Edward McCauley.
somewhere around 1975. Props were occasionally futuristic (such as a forerunner of today's real-life LCD TVs) but the show's earthly clothing and environs, including automobile
s, telephone
s and other machines, were decidedly 1950s.
Men Into Space was somewhat unusual for a TV action series in that it had numerous recurring characters, but only one --- the protagonist, Col. Edward McCauley (William Lundigan) --- who was in each of the 38 episodes in the series. Tyler McVey
appeared in seven episodes as Major General Norgath. Ron Foster
appeared five times as Lieutenant
Neil Templeton.
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 manned flights, the first flight to the moon
, many additional moon 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).
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 heart attack
while exploring the moon was not expected to survive the G-force
s 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 USSR
starting out almost simultaneously on the first Mars mission, with one of the craft aborting its effort to rescue the other craft and crew after it experienced problems.
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 VIII 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, and married couples in space.
and space medicine offices. The spacecraft designs, however, veered inconsistently between early 1950s Wernher Von Braun
concepts, and later, totally scaled-down proposals. Visual backdrops and conceptual designs of spacecraft, space stations and a moon base
depended somewhat on contributions from notable astronautics
artist Chesley Bonestell
. The series also availed itself of extensive documentary
footage of early missile launches. 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.
, an experiment to dispose of high level atomic waste
by launching it into the sun
, the search for life-sustaining frozen water on the moon, exploration and destruction of an asteroid
whose orbit threatened Earth, and exo-fossil evidence of extraterrestrial life
.
Although the series was modestly budgeted, it was cleverly mounted with what, for its era, were good special effects helmed by Louis DeWitt. Even decades later, the series can still be appreciated for its attention to detail and accurate physics.
ing 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.
On the other hand, the show repeatedly depicted sound in the vacuum of space. Airlocks hummed, rockets roared, explosions boomed, and footsteps on the moon's surface could be heard.
. The theme and recurring background music were written and conducted by David Rose
. The series was produced by Lewis J. Rachmil
.
Among the guest stars was Keith Larsen
of the CBS series Brave Heart and The Aquanauts.
Spacesuit costumes and special-effects
footage of space vehicles
(shot with miniature models) were later re-used in The Outer Limits
. The pilot episode used real, high-altitude pressure suit
s developed by the United States Navy
.
In the UK the series was shown as a children's series by the BBC in an early Saturday evening slot that would later be filled by a new sci-fi series for children - Doctor Who
.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series broadcast from September 30, 1959 to September 7, 1960 by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
which depicted future efforts by the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
to explore and develop outer space. The black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
filmed show starred William Lundigan
William Lundigan
William Lundigan was an American film actor. His films include Dodge City , The Fighting 69th , The Sea Hawk , Santa Fe Trail , Dishonored Lady , Pinky , Love Nest with Marilyn Monroe, The House on Telegraph Hill , I'd Climb the Highest Mountain and Inferno...
as Col. Edward McCauley.
Scenarios
The series was not set in a specific era, but clues throughout the scripts indicated that it took place in the mid 1970s to mid 1980s, with the first moon landingMoon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...
somewhere around 1975. Props were occasionally futuristic (such as a forerunner of today's real-life LCD TVs) but the show's earthly clothing and environs, including automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s, telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
s and other machines, were decidedly 1950s.
Men Into Space was somewhat unusual for a TV action series in that it had numerous recurring characters, but only one --- the protagonist, Col. Edward McCauley (William Lundigan) --- who was in each of the 38 episodes in the series. Tyler McVey
Tyler McVey
Tyler McVey was an American character actor.-Early life and career:McVey was born in Bay City on Saginaw Bay in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. His first screen role, uncredited, came at the age of 39 in 1951, when he portrayed Brady in the The Day the Earth Stood Still...
appeared in seven episodes as Major General Norgath. Ron Foster
Ron Foster (actor)
Ronald R. Foster, known as Ron Foster , is an American actor, whose longest-running role was as Dr. Charles Grant from 1991-1995 in the defunct CBS soap opera The Guiding Light....
appeared five times as Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Neil Templeton.
McCauley was a sort of "everyman" character who was viewed in the show as the most experienced and illustrious astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
. As depicted in the scripts
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
, the low-key but decisive McCauley was ubiquitous, assigned to every important space mission
Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
over at least a decade, including the earliest manned flights, the first flight to the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, many additional moon landings and moon base construction missions, construction of a space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
, and two flights to Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
(neither succeeded, and folklore has it that plans for a never-aired second season would have focused on further missions to Mars and beyond).
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 heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
while exploring the moon was not expected to survive the G-force
G-force
The g-force associated with an object is its acceleration relative to free-fall. This acceleration experienced by an object is due to the vector sum of non-gravitational forces acting on an object free to move. The accelerations that are not produced by gravity are termed proper accelerations, and...
s 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
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
" episode involved spacecraft from the USA and USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
starting out almost simultaneously on the first Mars mission, with one of the craft aborting its effort to rescue the other craft and crew after it experienced problems.
The series included an episode whose plot essentially paralleled the ill-fated Apollo 13
Apollo 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command...
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 VIII 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, and married couples in space.
Accuracy
The series was advertised as being for its era an extremely accurate preview of manned spaceflight, based on studies of the era and buttressed by technical assistance from the USAF's ballistic missileBallistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
and space medicine offices. The spacecraft designs, however, veered inconsistently between early 1950s Wernher Von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
concepts, and later, totally scaled-down proposals. Visual backdrops and conceptual designs of spacecraft, space stations and a moon base
Colonization of the Moon
The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth. Recent indication that water might be present in noteworthy...
depended somewhat on contributions from notable astronautics
Astronautics
Astronautics, and related astronautical engineering, is the theory and practice of navigation beyond the Earth's atmosphere. In other words, it is the science and technology of space flight....
artist Chesley Bonestell
Chesley Bonestell
Chesley Bonestell was an American painter, designer and illustrator. His paintings were a major influence on science fiction art and illustration, and he helped inspire the American space program...
. The series also availed itself of extensive documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
footage of early missile launches. It evoked the earlier Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
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
Collier's Weekly
Collier's Weekly was an American magazine founded by Peter Fenelon Collier and published from 1888 to 1957. With the passage of decades, the title was shortened to Collier's....
magazine, where Bonestell's art also held sway.
Prediction of technologies in use today
Men Into Space, later syndicated as Space Challenge, 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 telescopeSpace observatory
A space observatory is any instrument in outer space which is used for observation of distant planets, galaxies, and other outer space objects...
, an experiment to dispose of high level atomic waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
by launching it into the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
, the search for life-sustaining frozen water on the moon, exploration and destruction of an asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
whose orbit threatened Earth, and exo-fossil evidence of extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
.
Although the series was modestly budgeted, it was cleverly mounted with what, for its era, were good special effects helmed by Louis DeWitt. Even decades later, the series can still be appreciated for its attention to detail and accurate physics.
Scientific accuracy
A narrator explained in nearly every episode why the astronauts needed magnetic boots to walk in or upon their free-fallFree-fall
Free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it, at least initially. These conditions produce an inertial trajectory so long as gravity remains the only force. Since this definition does not specify velocity, it also applies to objects initially moving upward...
ing spacecraft, how a jet thruster backpack could propel an astronaut through the vacuum
Vacuum
In everyday usage, vacuum is a volume of space that is essentially empty of matter, such that its gaseous pressure is much less than atmospheric pressure. The word comes from the Latin term for "empty". A perfect vacuum would be one with no particles in it at all, which is impossible to achieve in...
of space, why a wrong angle of attack
Angle of attack
Angle of attack is a term used in fluid dynamics to describe the angle between a reference line on a lifting body and the vector representing the relative motion between the lifting body and the fluid through which it is moving...
could doom a spacecraft upon atmospheric
Earth's atmosphere
The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention , and reducing temperature extremes between day and night...
re-entry
Atmospheric reentry
Atmospheric entry is the movement of human-made or natural objects as they enter the atmosphere of a celestial body from outer space—in the case of Earth from an altitude above the Kármán Line,...
, 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
Space Shuttle program
NASA's Space Shuttle program, officially called Space Transportation System , was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011...
nearly 25 years later.
On the other hand, the show repeatedly depicted sound in the vacuum of space. Airlocks hummed, rockets roared, explosions boomed, and footsteps on the moon's surface could be heard.
Production notes
The program was produced by Ziv Television Programs, Inc., whose other notable series included Sea HuntSea Hunt
Sea Hunt was an American adventure television series that was aired in syndication by Ziv Television Programs from 1958 to 1961 and was popular in syndication for decades afterwards. The series originally aired for four seasons, with 155 episodes produced...
. The theme and recurring background music were written and conducted by David Rose
David Rose
David Rose was a British-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, pianist, and orchestra leader. His most famous compositions were "The Stripper", "Holiday for Strings", and "Calypso Melody"...
. The series was produced by Lewis J. Rachmil
Lewis J. Rachmil
Lewis J. Rachmil was an American film producer and art director. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Our Town. In the mid and late 1940s, he produced several of William Boyd's popular Hopalong Cassidy B-Westerns...
.
Among the guest stars was Keith Larsen
Keith Larsen
Keith Larsen was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer who starred in three short-lived television series between 1955 and 1961.-Background:...
of the CBS series Brave Heart and The Aquanauts.
Spacesuit costumes and special-effects
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
footage of space vehicles
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
(shot with miniature models) were later re-used in The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
. The pilot episode used real, high-altitude pressure suit
Pressure suit
A pressure suit is a protective suit worn by high-altitude pilots who may fly at altitudes where the air pressure is too low for an unprotected person to survive, even breathing pure oxygen at positive pressure. Such suits may be either full-pressure or partial-pressure...
s developed by the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
.
In the UK the series was shown as a children's series by the BBC in an early Saturday evening slot that would later be filled by a new sci-fi series for children - Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
.