And this is Star Wars' Danz Borin...
So what do we think?
Steve
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Men Into Space (1959)
I know very little about this American TV show except it ran for 38 episodes from 1959 to 1960 and was about men in space. I don't think we got it over here on this side of the pond but the little I've read online make it sound quite interesting for its time.
Enjoy the rest of the gallery and then contemplate if this is the same space helmet as worn by Danz Borin in Star Wars IV
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Not quite convinced, sorry...
ReplyDeleteBut on the other hand:
Dear Steve,
In recognition of your awesomeness, it is my pleasure to bestow upon your blog The Liebster Award!
(please scroll down in my post for an explanation; thank you!)
http://lernerinternational.blogspot.com/2013/05/in-praise-of-jack-kirby-and-weve-been.html
—Ivan
Thanks for the selection Ivan, I'll try to find the time to play the game although it's going to be a while due to other commitments outside of blogging.
ReplyDeleteNo rush or obligations! I just wanted to let you know your site is appreciated.
ReplyDelete--Ivan
many thanks, as is yours.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Yep IMO I think it's a match. BTW here are the 38 episodes just posted on youtube
ReplyDeleteMen Into Space (1959-'60 TV Series) 38 Episodes
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPmIfry8Yvr4MLgT1Fa7j2x6nyV3jpahV
Cheers
Cheers VTV&M, I'll pop on over and have a look-see
DeleteOne of my favorite series as a teenager, but my dad liked it, too, because it was thoughtful, dramatic, ultra-realistic (e.g., depicting free-fall, multi-stage launches). Many of the plots foreshadowed events years later in the real space program, like the endangered Apollo 13 mission. The series is hard-headed and often uses a narrator to describe what were then aspects of space travel unfamiliar to average viewers. The series however also has a humanistic and philosophical side, with the characters interacting with their earthbound families and colleagues. Even though in this series the US space program is run by the military and not a civilian agency like NASA, the program is portrayed as scientific, with few military objectives ever mentioned. Only one character is seen in every episode: US Air Force Col. Edward McCauley, who apparently in this fictional universe is the USA's chief astronaut. He makes the first moon landing, helps build a moon base, and then begins building a wheeled space station. His crews spend much time exploring and exploiting the moon, also visiting asteroids and the Mars moon Phobos. They also test new techniques, like tanker refueling in orbit. McCauley also teamed up with British and Russian spacefarers on occasion. All well staged with superior special effects for show or movies in the 1950s that still hold up reasonably well. The series worked closely with the real US Air Force for technical accuracy and was allowed to film at real US space facilities and use footage from real launches. A strong air of verisimilitude, although some plot holes and glitches occurred -- you'd have to expect that from an ambitious weekly series that produced 38 half hours in less than a year. Many interesting guest stars. The space suits and USAF spacecraft seen in this series were later resued in varoius episodes of "The Outer Limits" about five years later. Beside poor VHS quality episodes available on YouTube, there are several DVD pressings. At least one of these is also of poor quality, taped from syndicated broadcasts in the '80s. One claims to be digitally remastered. In any event, even the YouTube vids are watchable, albeit with variable quality. Several web sites and Wikipedia devote articles to the series and one book covering the series has recently been published. Highly recommended for SF fans who also like well-made TV, if you can get past the relatively poor recordings available in most cases.
ReplyDeleteA massive; thank you, Man MKE. Just about everything anyone might wish to know about the series. Also, I do love when people add their own memories to the facts and figures. As a cultural history, Say Hello Spaceman is as much about the when and where it was seen, as it is about the suits themselves. Really appreciated.
DeleteIf you encountered this show when it was new and you were young it had quite an impact. It was one of the first American attempts to set a show in outer space and try for realism and some degree of scientific accuracy. The pilot episode had an entirely different space suit design when they were experimenting with shooting the space stuff in color to pull mattes for B/W composites. The lighter (in color they were a pale gray) suits were adopted and they went with density mattes (black-backing or luminance mattes in the digital world) for the astronauts and the spacecraft. Since the (practical as there was an actual flame coming out of the rocket miniatures) rocket exhausts were so much brighter than the miniature you will see a black fringe on the flames. This show was big on split-screens (usual set-up: an EVA when the astronauts were on the full-scale section of the spacecraft and a stationary matte added the moving star-field added) and the miniatures were quite elaborate for a show of its vintage and budget. The TV syndication producer Howard ZIV (ZIV Productions was NOT and acronym but the man's name) cranked this out for all of $50,000. an episode which was quite modest even then.
ReplyDeleteWonderful detail, I'm still really surprised we never got an import of this show over here. Many thanks for your comments, opticalguy
DeleteI am NOT surprised at all since it was a syndicated show and considered a very minor show. I may be one of the few folks that gets a little shiver of excitement when I see an episode due to the fact that I did encounter it when I was five and the show was brand-new. It's worth getting one of the "gray market" DVDs just to be a sci-fi completest. It is very low-key and everyone plays stuff as if it were a documentary. The show became more ambitious they had a permanent Moonbase and the standing sets of it and the moon's surface which were pretty good given how low their budget was. They were then going to have the characters go to Marsbut the show was just not selling. So after 38 episodes they called it quits. It was shot at the current home of KTLA channel 5 in Hollywood which was the original home of Vitaphone. Marvelous B/W photography and … if memory serves … the optical work (compositing) was done primarily by Ray Mercer, INC and Jack Glass (an ace optical guy himself) supervised the miniature photography. The tidbit about the shooting the space stuff in color to help with pulling mattes came from Jim Danforth. Since … other than the first/pilot episode … 37 of the 38 episodes used the light-colored spacesuits and density mattes I assumed Jim made a mistake. Nope. I watched the pilot episode and saw the different suits and said, "Holy shit! He was right!" Since I used to do A LOT of bluescreen work I recognized the look of something that was red BUT in a blue separation. They shot it against black but in color. The helmets and the logos on the ships were red as were the shadows (one side lit red and one side blue resulting in a VERY flatly-lit foreground. Without filtration all the red and blue stuff looked pretty clear in a panchromatic B/W copy of the scene making it pretty easy to get a clean silhouette of the foreground. They then took the positive, color image of the foreground to "burn-in" the foreground on the B/W composite BUT they used a blue filter to turn the red stuff dark. Pretty cool but too pricy. A redesign of the suits and they went back to B/W black-backing with pretty good results.
DeleteBecause of the season; I watched "Christmas on the Moon" and I was impressed, especially given the age and budget of the show. This is one of those shows where more work went into than money. I wasn't around for the run, but for people who were it must have had an impact.
ReplyDeleteMy impression is that this is "Moonbase 3 done right." The characters are faced with a nasty unexpected emergency and neither fall to pieces or fall asleep; they're clearly agitated and stressed, but they're taking the right steps. I can imagine these guys on a multi-billion dollar mission.
From a space geek perspective, the only thing I flat out don't believe is that the only way to cross 50 miles of lunar terrain is a 12 hour forced march. I guess the effects budget didn't provide a moon crawler.
The episode does have a atheist converting on Christmas, but it was probably inevitable in a Christmas episode made in 1959. Besides, he didn't start off as Scrooge.
Cheers John. I've still not watched an episode yet but I may well go and seek one out. Loving the level of these comments. Good technical stuff and some good honest reviews - thanks chaps
DeleteHi John, I agree, "Christmas onthe Moon" is an excellent episode for all the reasons You mention. And, having been able to talk to some of the crew who worked on the show a number of years ago, I asked pretty much the ? about the lack of a moon crawler. I was given 2 answers: One, they hadn't thought about it and Two; no budget for it. Another point to bring up about the atheist is that due to society at the time more or less insisted that He change. Remember, America had just come out of a World War 15 years before with a win and our nation believed that it was because God was on our side so an atheist could not be seen as a hero unless he changed. It was that it was.
DeleteInteresting about the crawler; thanks very much for sharing.
DeleteRegarding the atheist, I'd also say the situation was ripe for a foxhole conversion; I could certainly see it all happening.
I believe the series was shown in the UK under the title "Space Challenge." The story is that when it came to an end, the BBC liked the idea of "edutainment" and so commissioned "Doctor Who."
Despite being a Say Hello, Spaceman fan for years, I'm only just now reading this Men into Space page now, and the comments from readers are terrific!
DeleteI wanted to mention that I wrote about the "Christmas on the Moon" episode a couple of times for the Vatican Observatory Foundation's site.
Here's an overview of the episode.
Here's a followup where I examined the scentific aspects of the episode in some detail.
Hi Bill, good to see you're still out there. always appreciate the comments and thoughts
DeleteThis show got me started in what has turned out to be a lifetime of addiction to Science Fiction. I have the entire series and still periodically watch it. One episode was about sending women to the moon to see how they would do. Even though I grew up in this time, I did not realize how sexist we were. In one scene, the female that is going to the moon (the wife of one of the astronaunts) asks " Well what would I do on the moon" to which the lead character, Col. Edward McCauley, says "the same thing you do here, cook, clean"
ReplyDeleteIt makes you laugh now to hear lines like that. It's outrageous to our modern ears but you're right when we grew up in those times we just didn't "hear" it. We have to forgive them for what they didn't know but it can bump you out of the moment when re-watching the old shows.
DeleteAnd thanks for the comments and opinions - keep them coming.
Yeah, the only defense possible is that it was made in 1959.
DeleteStill, I'll point out that the character McCauley is talking to is a 1959 housewife. I'm not sure what else she could bring to a Moon expedition. If I had to write about a housewife on an early all-male Moon mission, I'd want to make it more explicit that she really had a good impact.
Hi folks, Larry Mager here. I just noticed that my last 2 replys were listed as "unknown". I agree with the chauvinistic comments about "First Woman on the Moon". Chalk it up to the times, HOWEVER...by the episode "Dark of the Sun" which was the 22nd episode, While there is some chauvinistic comments made, the woman astronaut does stand up for herself as much as society let her on the show. I hope this helps. Cheers!
DeleteThank you for that update Larry
DeleteThis suits and helmets were used by the first X-15 pilots. Scott Crossfield used one of these in the first flights of the X-15. They are called MC-2 capstam suits with MA-3 helmets made by Billy Jack company. In the first episode of Men into Space, McCauley used onde of the first Mark 4 Navy suits (That were the basis for Mercury astronauts suits). But the suit was blue and didn´t look good in the black and white photography. Só the produceres purchasse some surplus silver MC-2 with MA-3 helmets. that were very expensive, so were used in many other tv shows. By 1959 the X-15 pilots were not using this suits anymore, changing for a design morelike the Mark 4
ReplyDeleteHi Jorge! Your answer is both right and wrong. Wrong in that the Suits used by the X-15 pilots were not capstan suits. They were fullpressure suits. Your are right about using the Mk4 suits in the 1st episode. I was told that the suits used in the rest of the episodes were BASED on the X-15 suits. I had talked years ago to several people who had worked for ZIV-TV and they went on to tell me that the real suits caused problems with reflections, a problem Lost in Space would run into 5 years or so later when they used the Racing Firesuitsfor the Robinsons. SO...the ZIV team made copies of the spacesuits from a silver gray material which photographed better. The helmets were based on the Bill Jack helmets but lacked the locking bar that came down over the visor on the actual Jack helmets. I'm currently working on a copy of the outfit for a SF Convention and remember the show, in fact Mom and Dad bought me the Helmet whic was cool if inaccurate. I also had the lunchbox and game as well. I had the astronaut set, but got those after they were rereleased under a different name. The kids' helmet is still around with a few changes; The Visor is no longer paintedaround the edges and the logo "U.S. Airforce" and "Mc Cauley" have been changes at various times to "Nasa" and "Astronaut". So the kids helmet is sort of like the original spacesuits in that they are still around! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHello to all. I am building a replica of the spacesuits used i the 1959-60 TV show, "Men Into Space" and I have not been able to find any color photos of the twin tank EVA backpack They wore. Does any one have any colored photos of it, please? I'll take a decent copy of the lunchbox if it shows said backpack. Thank You in advance.
ReplyDeletehttps://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/lunch-box-colonel-ed-mccauley-space-explorer/nasm_A20070087000
DeleteHope this helps!
John Nowak: That lunchbox photo is a nice find.
DeleteLarry Mager: Good news and bad news--pardon me if you already know this. Good: The cover of the September 7, 1959 issue of LIFE has a color photo of Bill Lundigan wearing a space suit. Also good: It's easily available online:
https://books.google.com/books?id=bUkEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Not good: We see Lundigan from the front, and only a tiny portion of the backpack is visible. One of the air tanks; it appears to be gray or silver. There's no sign of the red and white circles the lunchbox artist has painted on the endcaps of the tanks.
I have no other color photos showing the backpack. I nosed around Ebay, and there are plenty of stills from MEN INTO SPACE, but they're all black and white. This one gives a particularly good view of backpack details:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/295556900191
And I cannot resist mentioning that a sharp-eyed reader of SAY HELLO, SPACEMAN identified the gear Mister Ed was wearing, in the episode "The Horsetronaut," as a repurposed MEN INTO SPACE backpack:
https://sayhellospaceman.blogspot.com/search/label/Mister%20Ed
Good luck in your magnificent quest to recreate the costume!