One unconsciously realistic touch in the series is that no real use is ever revealed for this station, since the series does not depict any kind of coherent space program, beyond establishment of a tiny lunar base, and the space station itself.
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| MEN INTO SPACE, Part II | ||||||||||||||
| It's hard to give any other fair judgement regarding the series MEN INTO SPACE besides "disappointing!" The series did not make use of the Von Braun/Bonestell designs that it heavily publicized, nor did it look ahead to the actual space program that was beginning to develop as the series was filming. The miniscule budget for special effects, and the lack of a regular cast of space heroes to root for, meant a progression of deeply unsatisfying episodes that never evoked even a trace of the awe and excitement we associated with space exploration in those long-lost Golden Days of the 1950s. | ||||||||||||||
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| From the cover of the one MIS-tie-in paperback cover, we see the Bonestell painting of a shuttle lift-off. Note that there is a long, cylindrical cargo section between the shuttle and the final booster stage, the cargo section going into earth orbit attached to the shuttle. | A murky reproduction of the Bonestell painting showing the shuttle and cargo section detaching. These sections could ferry up to orbit the parts of the space station, and of the moon expedition ships that would be assembled later. | |||||||||||||
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| The finished Aries space station in earth orbit. One unconsciously realistic touch in the series is that no real use is ever revealed for this station, since the series does not depict any kind of coherent space program, beyond establishment of a tiny lunar base, and the space station itself. |
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| Bonestell's paintings, as fuzzily reproduced in a cigarette ad(!), do not make clear which is assembled first, the manned space station, or the lunar expedition ships. This one shows the one ship with a return stage nearly finished. | ||||||||||||||
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| The space shuttle depicted in the series was always represented by this strange model, shaped much like a modern dildo or vibrator, with tiny stubby fins. A full-scale mockup matching the rear half of the model somewhat loosely was used for some boring free-floating antics on a small, velvet-draped sound stage. | ||||||||||||||
| Except in the pilot film (the second episode to be broadcast), whenever we saw the "space shuttle" taking off it was a newsreel of an Atlas missile takeoff. Never mind that no space vehicle used in the program had even the vaguest resemblance to an Atlas missile or its warhead. | ||||||||||||||
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| The actual models used in the special effects sequences are shown behind an actor in this shot from an adventure in the cramped lunar base. Probably to avoid depth-of-field problems, every model was built to about a foot and a half in length, whatever the actual relative scale was supposed to be. And the budget did not extend much beyond these two specific models. [Click photo for next page.] | ||||||||||||||
| Time for some dull goings on in earth orbit. Note there's no attempt to depict weightlessness, although in a few sequences when astronauts transfer from the shuttle to another vehicle, the actors are hanging helplessly from a crude flying rig. | ||||||||||||||