Space News You Can Use (as of 2011)

Fast-breaking news of interest to old space-dogs, Space Cadets, Space Patrollers, Space Rangers, Video Rangers, Rocket Rangers, members of the Atom Squad, and Space Scouts, Space Rovers, Space Busters, Space Explorers— or anyone else who began to roam the universe (at least in daydreams) in the magical 1950s. Most recent update, June 6, 2010! Say, have you seen the Space-o-Pinup Page? How about the Space Patrol Forum, hosted by Clyde (Laser) Lyman, found here?

ROCKY JONES Wiki?

The most obscure of all early 1950s space adventure programs, at the time, was Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. It was s filmed, syndicated show in days when almost all TV programs were broadcast live, and it was seen in very few markets. Time has turned the worm, however, because today it is the most familar of all the series, including Captain Video, Tom Corbett Space Cadet, and Space Patrol. The simple reason is that all the other programs were preserved, if at all, only on kinescope recordings, 16 mm sound films shot directly off a tiny, bright TV tube during the broadcast... and it is very difficult to see them today. Whereas, Rocky's adventures have been readily available from the very earliest days of home video. Well, the point of all this is that there's now a Wiki exclusively devoted to all things Rocky. What I have seen seems accurate... they even spell Cleolanthe's name right! If you want to know more about the Rock and the Wink, or have facts, trivia and images to contribute, give that Wiki a closer look.

Farewell to Buck, Again!

After about a year of adventures, to use the word loosely, Dynamite Comics is apparently pulling the plug on the new BUCK ROGERS comic with the next issue (June, 2010). Well, I think I'll miss it. The artwork was never better than minimally acceptable, the character design ranged from absurd to annoying, and neither Buck nor Wilma ever came to life as a person... but Buck was back in action, in a redesigned 25th Century that didn't do too much violence to the expectations of longtime fans. The scriptwriter not only managed to work in Buddy, Ardala, Kane and Black Barney, but we even saw the Airlords of Han and something vaguely like a Hawkman (wait a minute, wrong strip!) in the most recent couple of issues. I never understood why the space ships and rayguns appeared to be made of self-luminous brass, nor what the political situation was (Orgs? Shades of L. Ron Hubbard!) in the 25th Century, or much of anything else, but that lack of coherence seems typical of comic books today. I hope a publisher with a better track record than Dynamite will take on either Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon in the coming years. They don't need "reinvention," they just need sympathetic and informed presentation.

More Comic-Book Disaster!

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Those random lines on the page up there are supposed to be Roger Manning (!), in the disastrous “new” Tom Corbett, Space Cadet comic from Bluewater. Jan Merlin has seen 3 issues, and I have seen 2, and there are no words in my vocabulary to describe adequately what horrors I saw in the two issues I scanned. The script is actually OK, and has much the flavor of some of the cadets' adventures on ABC radio in early 1952... but the drawings (to use the term loosely) that illustrate the script look, without exaggeration, like the work of a 4-year-old child with very poor vision and no hand coordination. The “artist” can't do heads, faces, torsos, arms, hands, legs, feet, or anything else that humans possess. He also can't draw space hardware, space ship exteriors, space ship interiors, space station exteriors, space station interiors, outer planets and moons, or any f**king thing else!!!!! If you want to know how low comics can sink, pick up an issue at some very large comics ship (you won't find it anywhere else)--- otherwise, you may wish to give it a wide, wide miss. We thought the 1990 Manga-style incarnation of TCSC was bad... well, folks, that one looks like the work of Rembrandt in comparison to the present horror exhibit!!

Jan Merlin reports, however, that he likes this series: “I have seen the first three comic books by BLUEWATER Comics. It took an aging cadet time to realize how this new version is an exciting and modernistic look at our adventures in space... and I recommend them highly to all of you and the Solar Guard members. — Roger... and out.” I have to admit I find lots of merit in the plot and action so far. An interview with the “artist” which I found on the internet reveals he is an amateur who worked on the art at night and did it entirely on a computer, this being his first experience with computer art. He says himself that the art only becomes what he intended in the last two issues of the proposed four. Well, we shall see. Only very large comic shops will have this title, and they will stock very few issues. I found in fact that this weekend (11/28-29/09) issues of this title virtually disappeared from the shops, and reappeared offered for sale as curiosities on eBay. If you have not already picked up copies, and want to, eBay may be your only resource. [Note added: announced for 6 issues, this series died after just 4. There was evidence in the 3rd issue of a whole plotline being cut out. The plot, such as it was, was not too bad. It was the completely unacceptable artwork, plus the current obscurity of these characters, that condemned this series before it ever got started. If even BUCK ROGERS can't make a go of it in the current comics climate, what hope have Tom and the Cadets?]

Peter Merlin Appears...

Buck Rogers?

Movie News?

Dead Again?

That's SIR Christopher to you, peasant!

PLANET OF DEATH!

Thanks to YouTube, here is a complete early 1950s French/German Flash Gordon episode, starring Steve Holland as Flash: Planet of Death!

Tom Swift, Tom Swift Jr., Tom Swift III, etc.?

I never picked one up, but during the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s the Stratemeyer Syndicate filled book stores with the adventures of Tom Swift, Jr., son of the famous boy inventor of the 1910s and 1920s. Later there were something like three revivals of the character, including one who operated in the distant future where interstellar space travel was routine, and a drastic revision of the Tom Swift, Jr., character, who has starred in two different paperback series in the past decade, one of which might be still be ongoing. During many decades there have been unrealized projects to do Tom Swift movies. One proposed film was based on the original 1910-era adventures, one was supposed to be a musical, and one was a new take on the Tom Swift, Jr. character. Now word comes of yet another attempt at the Tom Swift, Jr. franchise. Given Hollywood's track record in recent years, expect disaster, but hope for something tolerable.

The interstellar version of Tom Swift (III or IV?), circa 1980.

The currently on-going series.

Solar Guard Bulletin Board? No, Space-o-Forum!

After various unsuccessful attempts by various Cadets to launch a new Solar Guard Bulletin board have been abandoned, Laser (Clyde Lyman) has created one at his Space Patrol website. It seems to work. Hit this link, and follow the link at the top of the page.

IGNITION CITY!

If there's a big comic book shop near you, you might look for IGNITION CITY, by Warren Ellis; two issues so far, with a wild variety of different covers for each. The story, as near as I can figure it out, is set in about 1956 (significant year... the space heroes all vanished from live TV). The idea is that we are in a parallel world where all the fictional space heroes whose exploits took place in "real" time, say 1880 to 1955, actually lived and adventured simultaneously. Thus Flash Gordon is there since his storyline began in the 1930s, but Buck Rogers is not (25th Century!). The nations of the world are pretty disgusted with space travel, and the many, many alien invasions that they have consequently had to fight off, so almost all nations have closed their spaceports and made overflights by space vehicles illegal. All the spacemen are rotting away in an ocean-island ghetto, Ignition City, which is ringed with operating space launch pads and support facilities. Most of our heroes no longer have operating space craft or any means whatsoever of getting back into space. As the story opens, an incredibly voluptuous young spacegirl comes to Ignition City to investigate the death of her father, himself a famous space hero, and to recover his personal effects. From Dale Arden, who runs a tavern and leads a life of near-suicidal desperation, she gains enough information to begin her search for the facts behind her father's demise. Meanwhile we learn that her father's killer was a bitter and middle-aged Flash Gordon. The motive and aftermath will presumably be revealed in later issues. You might get a kick out of it. Particularly worthy of note is that every character has a raygun, and each is lovingly detailed and quite unique and different. A review can be found here.

FAREWELL GEOCITIES PAGES? Back in 2002 the Old Space Rat used the free Geocities webpage host to post images of Jan Merlin  taken during an unusual combined nostalgia convention and rodeo in Mesquite, Texas. These pages of images were supplemented by some pages on the Space Heroes of 1949 – 1960, which contained quite a bit of information that did not get into the Roaring Rockets web pages. Since Yahoo, which owns Geocities, has been on the rocks for several years, I wondered how long this free webhosting service would continue. AOL famously killed all the free pages it hosted with no warning whatsoever a year or so ago. Well, Yahoo has given warning that the Geocities hosting will cease “later this year.” I don't know whether it's worth transporting these 15 or so pages on Geocities to another free host, such as Bravepages. So maybe you should view these pages and save any images of interest to you, whilst you can.

THE USUAL CLICHE? Since the late 1940s, whenever the mass news media have discussed science fiction, it has invariably been in a sneering, dismissive tone and the writeups have emphasized science fiction writers as would-be prophets who have (according to the journalist) either hopelessly failed or brilliantly succeeded in “foreseeing the future” we currently live in. Here's a recent British version, which at least has the decency to interview actual writers (only one of whom I have ever heard of). See it here. It seems needless to say that science fiction writers in general are always writing about the here and now, and exploring how the here and now would differ if one additional novel feature were present: routine space travel, time travel, space-alien visitors, etc., etc.

A BUCK COMEBACK? Dynamite Comics has announced plans for a new BUCK ROGERS comic series. Buck hasn't been seen in regular comic books since some sporadic Gold Key comics issues in 1964 and 1978, and some comic book tie-ins to the lackluster 1979 – 1981 TV series. With Dynamite, a publisher whose track record is extremely mixed to say the least, one can only hope for the best and expect the worst. The writer says (in a COMIC SHOP NEWS interview) that you can expect to see the regulars of the 1930s newspaper strip, Buck, Wilma, Dr. Heuer, Black Barney, Killer Kane and Ardala, plus some nods to the TV series of 30 years ago. The first issue is scheduled for early May, #0 at 16 pages and selling for 25 cents or free, depending on who you talk to. [Update 4/23/09:  I have now seen issue #0; art barely passable, character design absurd, scripting and dialogue inept--- I'll reserve overall judgement until I see issue #1. For fun I looked up some reviews on the internet and they were generally insufferably moronic and ignorant.  Fanboys, the character called Commander Deering is Buddy, the nephew of Wilma, while the character called Wynona (oh, please!!) is the daughter of Buck and Wilma.  Get a grip, idiots!!]

TURKEY WATCH... The Old Space Rat of Roaring Rockets stopped going to the movies around 15 or more years ago, and has missed absolutely nothing worthwhile, but he still maintains a fairly sensitive antenna for Roast Turkey. I suspect Zack Snyder is one of the worst film directors ever to come along, and his evidently senseless and dull adaptation of the ground-breaking comic book limited series WATCHMEN by Allan Moore and Dave Gibbons deserves to tank at the box office so totally and completely that it makes career-smashing disasters like SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW look like runaway hits! Well, what goes around comes around. Check the stats. Roast turkey, anyone?

PHILIP JOSE FARMER... has died at the age of 91, in late February. Details here. In the magic 1950s and 1960s, the Old Space Rat of Roaring Rockets had three top favorite science fiction writers, whose latest work he always looked forward to with the highest anticipation: Jack Vance, Theodore Sturgeon, and Philip Jose Farmer. Farmer's fame didn't really skyrocket until the 1970s, with his Riverworld series. But his work was always exceptional and original.

PLASTIC TOYS flooded the 5 and 10 cent stores during 1947 – 1953, and they created a good deal of the magic that was the 1950s. Nobody knows more about such toys than Bill Hanlon. Have you seen his website?

HOW ABOUT A REGULAR MONTHLY COLLECTION OF SPACE ART? Check it out here.

PERMANENTLY OUT OF TOUCH? The little community of 10 or so old Space Cadets that used the old Starlog bulletin board was a pretty small group, and yet it was the largest group using the board regularly, one reason the new owners trashcanned the whole board. There seems little or no chance that the even older Solar Guard site will ever have a bulletin board again. It's sad, because those boards were about the only effective way to spread news. The old Space Rat here at Roaring Rockets could absolutely not be more out of “the loop.” I hear little or nothing about anything from anybody. And of the 10 or so stalwarts of the old SL BB, only about 5 or 6 could ever be informed of the existence of this sad substitute. Doesn't look good, Cadets... our ray gun power packs are about drained, and the enemy fleet is massing. But don't lose all hope.

ABSOLUTELY THE ONLY professional quality release of any Captain Video and his Video Rangers material known to us. It is, of course, the same four episodes everyone has had since 1987.

2009 SOLAR GUARD REUNION: It's been traditional for some years that a hard core of old Space Cadets get together each year at the Film Festival held in March in Williamsburg, Virginia. Well, no information whatsoever has been forthcoming about this year, but suddenly some has popped up here. It's probably too late to make plans to attend if you have not already done so, but we're talking about the Solar Guard Reunion at the Williamsburg Film Festival, March 11 - 14, 2009, at a Holiday Inn in Williamsburg, Virginia. Call 1-800-446-6001. In other news that perhaps may also be not all that useful, in its existing form, Jan Merlin alerts us that his son Peter, an NASA employee, will be on the History Channel, February 25, perhaps on their UFO Hunters segment, whatever that is, talking about his research into X-plane crash sites. Scroll down on this page to see more about Peter and his latest book.  If you are familiar with this channel and the segment referred to, check your listings to see when Peter might appear.

NEW 1950s SPACE SITE: Check out the attractive new site maintained by Cadet Jon Rogers, here.

BUCK ROGERS 1933!! “A 10 minute Buck Rogers film premiered at the 1933-1934 World's Fair in Chicago. John Dille Jr. (son of strip baron John F. Dille) starred in the film, which was called “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: An Interplanetary Battle with the Tiger Men of Mars.” Thanks to YouTube, you can now view this atrocity, which may be one of the worst short films ever made. It is at the absolute bottom in terms of script, concept, direction, acting, sets, special effects... you name it. Endure it here.

A VERY NICE GALLERY of sharp frame-capture images of the lovely Lt. Gay Ellis of UFO, to be seen here. Thanks to YouTube, you can see the lovely Gay in action, here.

COMPLETE TOM CORBETT EPISODE! While it lasts, here's a complete 1955 NBC episode of TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET, in four parts, and it's an episode I have never seen before, “Fight for Survival,” in which Tom, Astro and T. J. wind up lost in the jungles of Venus. See part 1 here, with links to the other three parts. For your convenience, all four portions have been assembled in sequence here. Although Jan Merlin is not in this episode, we are lucky that he, Jack Grimes, and Al Markim, as well as Margaret Garland, are all still very much with us!

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FORREST J. ACKERMAN DIES--- It was expected. He took to his bed about a month and a half ago and announced that he wouldn't be getting up. Thursday, December 4, a week or so after his 92nd birthday, he was carried away by a heart attack. [TIME Obit.] "Forry" or "4SJ" and his magazine FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND were a vital part of that continuous ferment in the 1950s that made science fiction an integral component of movies and TV, as it has been ever since. Farewell, Uncle Forry! It wouldn't have been the 1950s without the SHOCK THEATER TV film package, and Forry's magazine fit right in, to tell us more about Boris and Bela and the other screen legends we had just become instant fans of!

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ONE JOKE OVER AND OVER can still sometimes be funny. Uncyclopedia is a pretty labored parody of the hopeless Wikipedia, but it's evolving almost as many entries as its target. Here, for instance is the Uncyclopedia entry on Captain Video! By the way, did you know LIFE magazine issued its famous 1953 CV "villain panorama" as a poster??

JAN MERLIN, UPCOMING APPEARANCES:  Jan's commitments so far for 2009 are:

TOM POWERS: SPACE OPERA! This site vanished in a wholesale purge of AOL web pages, but is now restored and to be found here. Laser's SPACE PATROL pages can be checked out here, and here. You can also find a page of Space Hero-style Christmas 2008 greetings here. Click on the thumb-nails to view the cards full size.

LUNCH BOXES were a somewhat poor overlap with the 1950s and its lineup of space adventure TV shows, but here's a collection for you to inspect. How many of these did you know about?

MISS THE SPACE PINUP GALLERIES? The StarLog website's bulletin board is now probably permanently defunct, but you can still get a daily fix of two or three space or fantasy pinups, here. Hit it today.

JACK NARZ DIES. We aren't getting doodly-squat of info from Old Cadets, so it was half a month before we learned of the death of JACK NARZ, announcer on the TV version of SPACE PATROL, and in later years a famous game-show host. Narz had a classic announcer's voice and an enthusiastic delivery that made you want all the toys and premiums he had to pitch on SPACE PATROL. We'll miss you, Jack!! As far as I know, Jack was the last surviving member of the SP cast, and I call him a member because he wore a Patrol uniform in doing his live advertisements and pitches.

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Heads Up From Jan (Roger Manning) Merlin:

Here is Jan's son Peter Merlin with the latest of his three books on “X-Plane Archaeology.” Peter and a partner, both NASA employees, as a hobby try to locate the crash sites of the various highly-experimental X-series planes, spy planes and other prototype aircraft that augered into the desert of White Sands. To obtain this brand new book, click here, for the Amazon.com page offering it for sale.

From Jan (Roger Manning) Merlin: “I thought you might like to get this item on your Internet sites…I shall next be guesting at the Seattle, Washington REPS SHOWCASE XVI, an old time radio Convention, on June 27th and 28th, 2008. Among other recreations of old shows, we shall perform the TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET radio script I wrote, which some of you may have seen done in Williamsburg, VA in March of 2005. As Frankie Thomas died in May of that year, it was the last script I ever performed with him. For further information regarding the convention, contact: repsonline.org”   [We  heard later from Jan that he and his wife had a great time at this convention and will probably be returning in 2009.]

Keeping track of what videos of SPACE PATROL, CAPTAIN VIDEO and SPACE CADET are available to view on-line, when and where, has become pretty difficult. YouTube, in particular, takes these videos up and down at the drop of a hat, wetting themselves whenever anyone claims to have a copyright, then silently reposting when lawyers affirm no copyright currently exists. Your best way to find the videos is just to search with google on the program title. I recently found an on-line version of the most commonly posted CAPTAIN VIDEO episode, the one I call “Terms for Teirsen,” in which Captain Video and the Ranger are attending an interstellar peace conference held on the planet Metaspheros, which was absolutely razor sharp, far sharper than my original VHS video of the broadcast purchased 15 years ago.

A message from SPACE PATROLLER LASER: While patrolling cyberspace, I happened onto this page. I swear this TVNETWORKS dude is a man after our own heart. Do you suppose someone's been talking to him? He gave us two CapVids, two Space Patrols and now... here are three consecutive Rocky Jones episodes. Alas, the links are mislabelled. Scroll down to the two images . Though they're both labelled as episode one, the second one is ep 3. Ep 2 is in the "Related Videos" on the same page again mislabelled as ep1. The page with ep 3 has our good ol' Space Patrol episode PLUS another Rocky Jones episode AND a RJ Sugar Jets commercial. Can you say "Space Ranger Heaven"?  [Thanks for the heads up, Laser.  Any time.]

THE 2008 SOLAR GUARD REUNION was held March 5 – 8, 2008 in Williamsburg Virginia. Click the link for further details, guests, attractions, etc., that  you missed if you are just now seeing this message.

The three WALT DISNEY/WERNHER VON BRAUN “MAN IN SPACE” broadcasts from circa 1955 are now posted in fragments on YouTube. Check them out here! And here is a portion of a very early SPACE PATROL episode with Kit Corry, Happy, Carol, and Agent X. Finally, there's the first five minutes of the NBC Tom Corbett, Space Cadet episode, “Grapes of Ganymede,” with Frankie Thomas, Al Markim and (groan) Jack Grimes. And as I write (Jan. 21, 2008) there are two full 30-minute Captain Video episodes back to back on YouTube, here. Both are early (1948 - 9). See them before they get taken down by unsubstantiatable threats from bogus-copyright holders.

ROARING ROCKETS has created a MySpace page with links to various sites of interest, and with some embedded videos. Check it out here.

CAPTAIN VIDEO: Here's a CAPTAIN VIDEO clip from a Richard Coogan episode completely new to us. The Video Ranger (Don Hastings) seated at the controls of the X-9, does a live commercial for the Captain Video photo ring. Check it out. ------ We tend to think of MySpace as the WWW hangout of teenage losers hoping to hook up with other losers, or sexual predators hoping to hook up with such losers, but MySpace offers a general attraction: a free web page which can be as elaborate as you wish, and is very easy for search engines to find. As a result professional magicians such as David Copperfield and Criss Angel have very elaborate MySpace pages, with many images, features and links to their actual dedicated sites. Magician turned debunker of pseudoscience and craziness James Randi, for example, has an elaborate MySpace page. But what we wish to direct your attention to here are what might be called fan webpages. Yes, you can find MySpace pages which appear to be personal pages for Groucho Marx, Sid Caesar, Ernie Kovacs, Lon Chaney, etc., etc. Naturally when I became aware of this I searched for space heroes. Only Captain Video is represented, with not one but two pages, one for Captain Video and His Video Rangers, featuring the nice image of Richard Coogan as the Captain turned up by David Weinstein, and Captain Video. This latter page is of interest to us here at Roaring Rockets, because all the text and images are borrowed from our site, and even the name Roaring Rockets is used by the creator of the page. Well, it ain't us!! In any case, have a look at these two pages and their accompanying photos and links.

SPACE PATROL: News comes of the death of Maury Hill, a former writer of the daily 15-minute Space Patrol series, mainly seen locally in the LA area from 1950 to 1953. He also played parts on the program. According to the Variety obit, he had been the very last surviving cast member of the program, and as far as we know here at RR, this statement is nearly correct, if you ignore Jack Narz (see above). Speaking of the very early days of Space Patrol, here's a 5-minute clip from a very, very early episode, thanks to Swapsale.com. [For info on earlier-posted clips, scroll down.] And here is another clip showing the integrated advertisement for some premium ring (I don't recognize either the episode or the ring!)

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Jan and Frankie

As I write this (June 9, 2007) it's been more than a year since the death of Cadet Tom Corbett, aka Frankie Thomas. Jan Merlin sends along an image from May 2007 of Frankie's cemetery marker, with inscription by Frankie's daughter-in-law Julie. The marker reads, “Frank M. Thomas, Jr. Beloved Son, Husband, Stepfather, Actor. April 9, 1921 — May 11, 2006. Love You Forever and Then Some! Spaceman's Luck!” The special “Space Cadet” flag was designed and created by Jan himself.

SPACE PATROL! If you haven't checked out YouTube lately, there was a full-length Space Patrol episode posted here. I don't know the title, but it involves the idealistic manufacturer of an inexpensive, safe aircar, who draws the ire and fire of rival manufacturers. Well, it's now back up, see it while it remains.... whoops, it's now gone again.  Whoops, now it's back up. There was another episode in two parts, “Lost Treasure of Mars,” with the syndicated Satellite Police introduction used in the late 1950s. Part 1 was here, and part 2 was here. In this thrilling episode, Hap, Buzz and an archaeologist run afoul of earth gangsters posing as survivors of the long-lost ancient race of Carnicans. This is one of the “Martian Totem Head” premium tiein episodes, but alas no commercials are included. These episodes were taken down for a while, probably at the request of producer Wade Williams, who claims to hold the copyrights to Space Patrol kinescopes. Well, too bad, and quite sad, since Williams himself has not released any of this material in a decade, in any form. Go stand in the corner, Wade!! Anyway, the episodes are popping up and down, probably as YouTube responds in its usual incomprehensible way to agitation.  Try the links once in a while. TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET! Also still on YouTube are some Kellogg's PEP commercials as featured on TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET. One of my favorites is here, where the teenage cheerleader apparently has an orgasm at her first spoonfull of Pep. The kid sister does a much better job of faking enjoyment. The same commercial done with male kids is here. ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER! The same group that posted the full-length Space Patrol episodes mentioned above has now posted some full-length 30-min Rocky Jones, Space Ranger episodes. See them before they get taken down. The first one is “Rocky's Odyssey,” here. To find others, search on the series title! CAPTAIN VIDEO! Also on YouTube is the Willy Ley-narrated Voyage to the Planets, with special effects by the Captain Video team of Russell and Haberstroh, here! And finally some actual CV clips are showing up. Here's the opening of one of the Richard Coogan broadcasts involving a peace conference on the planet Metaspheros. Search on CAPTAIN VIDEO AND HIS VIDEO RANGERS to locate more clips as they turn up. The original clip mentioned above has now been taken down.

Space Hero fan Jerry DeMocko has reminded the Old Spacerat of Roaring Rockets that the Gutenberg Project has posted the early 1950s Tom Corbett, Space Cadet novels as written by mysterious and anonymous ghostwriter(s) “Cary Rockwell.” The novels are complete, with original illustrations. What are posted are not scanned pages, but html pages in a clear, bold font easy to read from the screen, and also (he says) very easy to download. He is currently reading the first novel, Stand By for Mars! to his grandson. The originals are getting fairly hard to find now, although plentiful in used bookstores a decade ago. You can click here.

Here's an image that very, very few have ever seen... the Polaris unit (from left to right, Captain Steve Strong, Roger Manning, Astro and Tom Corbett) playing the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Space Game. The purpose of this very obscure game which appeared circa 1951 was to graduate from Space Academy, something the Polaris unit itself never managed, at least on the air!

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It's not exactly space news, but: have you seen our ILLUSION PAGES? These consist of nearly 150 pages, each devoted to one or more optical illusions, some very recently discovered. No practical jokes or trick photos here, just amazing images that illustrate the strange, and often stunning or baffling internal “codes” that the eye-brain system uses to interpret what it sees. Click here to go to the first page, or here to jump right into the midst of the set.