| Destination Space | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Joseph Pevney |
| Written by | Rip Van Ronkel |
| Produced by | Rip Van Ronkel |
| Starring | Harry Townes John Agar Charles Aidman Edward C. Platt [1] |
| Cinematography | Loyal Griggs |
| Edited by | Jerry Webb |
| Music by | Van Cleave |
Production companies | |
Running time | 51 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Destination Space is a 1959 American science fiction television film. It was produced and written by Rip Van Ronkel and directed by Joseph Pevney. [1]
James Benedict, the director of the United States space program, is in charge of operations aboard an American rotating wheel space station, the first of its kind. The imminent launch from the station of the first crewed lunar orbital spacecraft is aborted due to a meteor impact. Benedict testifies before a United States Senate committee, some of whose members believe that the construction of the station was an unnecessary expense which is delaying achievement of the Moon mission. An impartial observer, Dr. Kurt Easton, travels to the space station to observe operations as the crew prepares for the second attempt to launch the Moon mission. This launch is also aborted, however, when the lunar spacecraft's nuclear engine malfunctions due to ice buildup, necessitating rapid action by Dave Reynolds, the spacecraft's commander, to prevent an explosion. Meanwhile, Benedict, whose long-term romantic relationship has not yet led to marriage, finds himself to be one corner of a love quadrangle when Reynolds' wife reveals that she is in love with him. [1]
According to science fiction scholar Gary Westfahl, "virtually no information [is] available about this film." Westfahl speculated that Destination Space, a joint production of Paramount Pictures and CBS, was actually a pilot for a prospective TV series about space travel, produced in competition with the pilot for Men into Space . According to Westfahl's theory, CBS chose the latter series, which debuted in 1959. [2]
Rip Van Ronkel, the producer and writer of Destination Space, was the co-screenwriter of the 1950 science fiction film Destination Moon . Destination Space makes extensive use of stock footage from the 1955 Paramount science fiction film Conquest of Space . [1]
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction found the movie to be weighed down by a forced romantic triangle and more talking than action; however, the movie had some positive points. The movie points out the extreme cost of space travel and strives for realism. The movie also notes the dangers of space travel as many missions have failed. In all, the Encyclopedia found the movie of interest. [3]
The movie was released in Region 1 in 2000. [4]
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's Islands of Space in the November issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences, although there are examples generally considered as "hard" science fiction such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, built on mathematical sociology. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.
The Lunar Orbiter program was a series of five uncrewed lunar orbiter missions launched by the United States from 1966 through 1967. Intended to help select Apollo landing sites by mapping the Moon's surface, they provided the first photographs from lunar orbit and photographed both the Moon and Earth.
Zond was the name given to two distinct series of Soviet robotic spacecraft launched between 1964 and 1970. The first series, based on the 3MV planetary probe, was intended to gather information about nearby planets.
Human spaceflight programs have been conducted, started, or planned by multiple countries and companies. The age of crewed rocket flight was initiated by Fritz von Opel who piloted the world's first rocket-propelled flight on 30 September 1929. All space flights depend on rocket technology; von Opel was the co-designer and financier of the visionary project. Until the 21st century, human spaceflight programs were sponsored exclusively by governments, through either the military or civilian space agencies. With the launch of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of human spaceflight programs – commercial human spaceflight – arrived. By the end of 2022, three countries and one private company (SpaceX) had successfully launched humans to Earth orbit, and two private companies had launched humans on a suborbital trajectory.
The Constellation program was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a "return to the Moon no later than 2020" with a crewed flight to the planet Mars as the ultimate goal. The program's logo reflected the three stages of the program: the Earth (ISS), the Moon, and finally Mars—while the Mars goal also found expression in the name given to the program's booster rockets: Ares. The technological aims of the program included the regaining of significant astronaut experience beyond low Earth orbit and the development of technologies necessary to enable sustained human presence on other planetary bodies.
Destination Moon is a 1950 American Technicolor science fiction film, independently produced by George Pal and directed by Irving Pichel, that stars John Archer, Warner Anderson, Tom Powers, and Dick Wesson. The film was distributed in the United States and the United Kingdom by Eagle-Lion Classics.
Men Into Space is an American black-and-white science fiction television series, produced by Ziv Television Programs, Inc., that was first broadcast by CBS from September 30, 1959, to September 7, 1960. The series depicts future efforts by the United States Air Force to explore and develop outer space. The series' star, William Lundigan, played Col. Edward McCauley.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, on 13 September 1959.
The Moon has appeared in fiction as a setting since at least classical antiquity. Throughout most of literary history, a significant portion of works depicting lunar voyages has been satirical in nature. From the late 1800s onwards, science fiction has successively focused largely on the themes of life on the Moon, first Moon landings, and lunar colonization.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to space exploration.
The concepts of space stations and space habitats feature in science fiction. The difference between the two is that habitats are larger and more complex structures intended as permanent homes for substantial populations, but the line between the two is fuzzy with significant overlap and the term space station is sometimes used for both concepts. The first such artificial satellite in fiction was Edward Everett Hale's "The Brick Moon" in 1869, a sphere of bricks 61 meters across accidentally launched into orbit around the Earth with people still onboard.
In orbital mechanics, a Lissajous orbit, named after Jules Antoine Lissajous, is a quasi-periodic orbital trajectory that an object can follow around a Lagrangian point of a three-body system with minimal propulsion. Lyapunov orbits around a Lagrangian point are curved paths that lie entirely in the plane of the two primary bodies. In contrast, Lissajous orbits include components in this plane and perpendicular to it, and follow a Lissajous curve. Halo orbits also include components perpendicular to the plane, but they are periodic, while Lissajous orbits are usually not.
Orion is a partially reusable crewed spacecraft used in NASA's Artemis program. The spacecraft consists of a Crew Module (CM) space capsule designed by Lockheed Martin and the European Service Module (ESM) manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space. Capable of supporting a crew of four beyond low Earth orbit, Orion can last up to 21 days undocked and up to six months docked. It is equipped with solar panels, an automated docking system, and glass cockpit interfaces modeled after those used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. A single AJ10 engine provides the spacecraft's primary propulsion, while eight R-4D-11 engines, and six pods of custom reaction control system engines developed by Airbus, provide the spacecraft's secondary propulsion. Orion is intended to launch atop a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with a tower launch escape system.
Mission Mars is a 1967 American science fiction film. It was produced by Everett Rosenthal, with a screenplay by Mike St. Clair from a story by Aubrey Wisberg, and directed by Nick Webster.
Space travel, or space flight is a classic science-fiction theme that has captivated the public and is almost archetypal for science fiction. Space travel, interplanetary or interstellar, is usually performed in space ships, and spacecraft propulsion in various works ranges from the scientifically plausible to the totally fictitious.
