2002 Cosmic Correspondence Archives

January 2002

[From Spencer Gill (1/11/02):]

As much as I appreciate the work involved in you web site (and it is very nice or I wouldn't have taken the time to write you) I cannot help being bothered by your description of the show MEN INTO SPACE, specifically the following description:

"Like all other ZIV Productions, the program was painfully dull, and the special effects were dreadful. (Instead of building models of the complex space vehicles designed by Bonestell, the special effects team just did minimal, cartoon-like animation of Bonestell's paintings!)"

The effects may seem quite crude compared with today's 2 to 3 million-dollar budgets for the various Star Trek spin-offs (hell, now people laugh at the original Star Wars effects) but they were pretty groundbreaking for their time. The worst complaint I can make of the miniatures (and a lot of them were used) is that they were too small (the Aries space station model was little more than 2.5 feet in diameter) but given the lack of money (and space in which to film the miniatures) that was unavoidable. The use of traveling mattes (density mattes - in computer terms think luminance mattes) in a weekly TV show was pretty ambitious and the sets and effects shots were used extensively in the TV show THE OUTER LIMITS (the episodes "Specimen: Unknown," "Moonstone," and "The Invisible Enemy")

You did seem to read the right sources for your show history but please, actually watch an episode or quote someone who actually has seen some of the episodes and knows what they are talking about. There are a lot of industry professionals (you can tell by my screen name that optical effects were my specialty) who read these things.

For images (alas, from VHS tape copies but the site that used to have high quality photos is no more) try here. In the section devoted to the individual episode synopses there are quite a few photos and you'll have to admit they were amazingly ambitious for the time. Jack Poplin (the art director) went on to do THE OUTER LIMITS and the visual style is somewhat similar. I hope you will correct your otherwise excellent entry on the TV show MEN INTO SPACE. Take this correction as a compliment.

[SpacEditor's note: Thanks for your input and information, Spencer. We depend on readers such as yourself, having direct and detailed knowledge of a given program, to share that knowledge with us in just the way you are doing. The great thing about a website, as opposed to more conventional forms of publication, is that you aren't stuck with your errors. Pages can be updated at will and as extensively as new information sources permit. We will certainly redo the MEN INTO SPACE writeup, as soon as the dust settles, and we have a feel for the situation. Our original writeup was based on viewing of three scattered episodes. We saw no miniature special effects in these episodes, such as "Moon Cloud." Rocket liftoffs were all newsreels of Atlas missile tests, and the moonship shown was a Bonestell painting, while the moon landings were suggested by crudely panning across other Bonestell paintings. Hence our remarks.]

February 2002

[From Bill Parkyn (02/03/02):]

Thank you for your site. I haven't thought to do a web search previously on this topic.

As a science geek born in 1944, in the '50s I was right on the cross-hairs of these shows. Near Boston, I got to see Space Patrol, Rocky Jones, Tom Corbett, and Atom Squad, but I'd never even heard of Captain Video, though I remember Captain Midnight quite well. He had a mountaintop runway with an observatory dome, flying in a Douglas X-3 SkyRocket. I didn't see him in your list.

How about Science Fiction Theater? You should cover that too.

I got tears of nostalgia a few years back watching a Space Patrol episode, and again tonight when I came across your site. I've already ordered some videos, including Rocketship X-M. I was very taken with that as well, and I always remembered my shivers of awe when they landed on Mars. When Mars pictures started getting posted at www.msss.com, I perused thousands of them, but one that was featured in their special briefings turned out to provide the exact cliffside scenery where RocketShip XM landed. Click on the closeup image on the right, with all its spooky double-pronged shadows. On the sand flats near the top of the picture, on the right, there is one small crater much fresher than the others. It was made in 1953, when the ship touched down exactly there. I can almost see the mutants' tracks in the sand....

Your fellow Space Fan,

Bill(y) Parkyn

[From Gmhooker2@aol.com (02/04/02):]

I turned nine in 1950...was 18 by 1959...my adolescent and teen years spent in that great decade...everything you say is true and more...I still have my EC comics, my records, and sold my toys at auction a few years ago...now regarded as major collectables...and I wouldn't have traded those years away for any other decade that followed! Your little tome rings very true. AMEN!!

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[From Bill Parkyn (02/05/02):]

I don't remember any Captain Midnight episodes, and it was his mountaintop location that thrilled me. Anyway, he was in my 'second tier' as I could call it now, along with 'Atom Squad' and 'Commando Cody.'

In this order, the FIRST TIER of my SpaceMan Pantheon consisted of:

TOM CORBETT
SPACE PATROL
ROCKY JONES

If you'd ask me any time back then as to the exact order I would probably have put the most recently-watched one first. Close as they were in altitude in my Pantheon, however, I think that those now-nostalgiated years would overall vote them in that order. Tom Corbett did go to the Stars, whereas Rocky Jones only went to moons. Commander Corry came back to our time once, my very favorite episode. My brother and I looked for Terra V in our skies for a long time afterwards... I knew dozens of boys back then, both in Catholic school and my neighborhood, and we ALL adored those programs. It would have been unthinkable not to.

As far as movies, I think 'Forbidden Planet' was my favorite over even 'Rocketship XM.' In that regard, I recommend this paper. 'Rewriting Prospero: Forbidden Planet as a Tragid Revision of the Tempest' which I just found today, serendipitously enough.

Of course, other SF movies I liked back then, 'War of the Worlds,' 'Earth vs. Flying Saucers', 'Day the Earth Stood Still,' 'When Worlds Collide' (smartass as I was I yelled 'momentum is conserved,' and it went over the head of everyone in the audience except a girl my age I met as a result) wouldn't qualify because Our Guys weren't flying in space. If the Disney Nautilis was a spaceship it would have counted for sure.

All those great flicks helped foment an SF fandom that loved Our Guys even more. I yearned to become any of the three heroes in my above-mentioned trinity. I devoured the comic book 'Mysteries in Space,' read the Hardy Boys, etc. Those sure were the days.

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March 2002

[From Ron Peterson (02/03/02):]

Hi! I found your website after doing a GOOGLE search for CAPTAIN VIDEO, and I was surprised to find so much information, both on your site and many others. I'm 62 now and started watching CAPTAIN VIDEO in the early 1950s, possibly the very first shows. I was a young Iowa farm boy then, and the show came on around 6 PM, chore time in Iowa! My dad was great, he let me take a break from my chores to watch the show... on the condition that I finished them when the show was over. You mention the low-budget sets that were used and I recall vividly one show when the Captain and the Ranger were "blasting off," a scene which required both of them to lunge back violently in their seats to simulate the g-force. Well, the Captain put a little too much into it, and he and his seat fell over backward! With live TV, the only thing they could do was pan away while the Captain gathered his composure and went on with the scene. I thought it was pretty funny at the time, but also sympathized with the embarrassment of "my hero."

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June 2002

[From W. Paul Wilson (6/27/02):]

Hello! I just wanted to send you a thank you for all of your wonderful efforts on Roaring Rockets. I am a 55 year old modeler and figure painter and have never found a more wonderful website. I have many of the old Tom Corbett and Rex Mars Marx 54mm toy figures with a hand full of old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers 45mm plastic toy men from the early 60's. When I came across your site I was able to correct the color schemes on some of these figures and spaceship models. For that I wanted to thank you. I have been a space cadet fan for 45 years. I inherited my first figures from an older cousin in 1954, (which I still have) and have been collecting ever since. Anyway, I just had to drop you a line and tell you how much I appreciate your website. Thank you so much for your efforts!

Paul Wilson

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August 2002

[From Dan Boulet (8/8/02):]

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. I was one of those 50s kids. My space set is in the attic at my mother's. I turned many a refrigerator box into a spaceship.

Dan

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[From Astronomer Howard Bond (8/15/02):]

Hi, Professor/Cadet Coker, I just wanted to thank you again for the RR website. It sure brings back memories.

I hadn't checked the Cosmic Correspondence for quite some time, and was amazed to read the contribution (August 2001) from Michael Rutkaus. He described how Captain Video and the Video Ranger had appeared in person (and in uniform, of course) at the Glen Echo amusement park outside Washington DC once in the early 50's, and how he had shaken hands with them.

The source of amazement is that I was at that event myself, and it is one of my vivid childhood memories (of course, at my age I can't remember anything that happened last week or last month, but I can remember 1952, when I was 10 years old, in remarkable detail). I even remember how one youngster in the audience asked the Captain "Is the moon hot, or cold, or warm?". My memory of the Captain's answer is a bit vague, but I do recall that he handled it gracefully.

Well, I went on to become a professional astronomer, and my mother (now a spry 83), who had taken me to Glen Echo for the appearance, still asks me regularly whether the moon is hot, or cold, or warm.

Cadet Howard
(Howard E. Bond, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore MD)

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November 2002

[From Bob Newbell (11/4/02):]

Professor:

I just wanted to say how much I enjoy your Roaring Rockets website. I'm 31 years old, so I missed the 1950s and the great science fiction of that era. Through the stories of authors like Ray Bradbury and reprints of EC comic books like Weird Science, I've had the opportunity to develop at least some idea of what a wonderful time the '50s must have been for a young science fiction fan.

I especially liked your article on the 1950s on the website. In 20th century America, the 1960s seemed to serve as a great historical discontinuity. The time of the Old West and the 1950s seem to be culturally more proximal to each other than 1955 and 1975. With the exception of how women and minorities were treated as second-class citizens, in many ways the '50s appear to be culturally more advanced than the present era. I also prefer Bradbury's Mars to the one the Viking lander showed us.

Thanks for the great website.

Cordially,

Bob Newbell

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[From Marshall Thayer (11/4/02):]

Professor:

I've just discovered the "Roaring Rockets" site, and want to thank you for a great job.

Most of all, I want to thank you for confirming (to *my* satisfaction at least) a speculation I have entertained for decades.

In your interview with Harry Persanis, he says "I can tell you that the Galaxy [II] was mostly designed by Alex [Haberstroh] and put together by me using two identical halves from two plastic model kits of a contemporary jet plane."  

I have long been almost certain that the Galaxy II was two Aurora Plastic Models Lockheed XF-90 aircraft sliced horizontally and the two top halves assembled back-to-back.  What is delightfully ironic in this choice is that the Lockheed XF-90 (of which only two were built before cancellation of the program) was the aircraft used in the "Blackhawk" comic books in the post-war period.  (The original propellor planes used by the Blackhawks was the one-only Grumman XF5F - the Blackhawks always had more of the planes than really existed.)

Again, thanks for your site!

Marshall Thayer

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