The First Manned Mars Landing October 26,1951

First Manned Mars Landing October 26, 1951

    I know that I got your attention with that one! How could this be possible? Was this another Orson Wells hoax?

     A couple of weeks ago I was Comcast’s latest internet system installed. All of my television and computer facilities were “off line.” I was reduced to playing videos from my video library. I found a unique collection of 1950’s TV science fiction called Classic Sci-Fi TV. I found a series in the collection called Tales of Tomorrow. It aired on the then fledgling ABC network from 1951-1953. I watched an episode called Test Flight that aired on October 26, 1951.

      I have had a long fascination with the idea of a privately-financed mission to Mars. I always imagined someone like Elon Musk, Virgin Galactic or the team from Google doing it. Any of these people would be very intelligent, sensitive and visionary.

     The veteran actor Lee J. Cobb played a character named Wayne Crowder. He was a wealthy company owner with a dream to send a manned rocket to Mars. He initially spent $20.5 million dollars to develop a chemical rocket to fly to Mars. (This was a fortune in those days when one could buy a decent home for $8,000 and a nice car for $1,500.) He was this stereotype of the hard-driving and ruthless business person with a one-track mind focused on success at all costs.

      His first model was a one-stage rocket that he hoped to take into interplanetary space. He struggled to find a chemical propulsion engine that would launch this large mass and a human crew into space. The Science Fiction League of America was behind this program. They did not do good technical research. They should have talked to Dr. Wernher von Braun. During World War II Dr. von Braun and his engineering team designed and started to build the A-10 rocket. It was a large first stage that the V-2 Rocket would sit atop. In peaceful operations, it would have put a satellite into orbit. Its military model was also called The Amerika Rocket. It was designed to launch a manned V-2 rocket toward New York or Washington, DC with a nuclear war head in the nose cone. (The poor astronaut would have been on a suicide mission, by the way.)

        Wayne Crowder realized that he was not reaching his objective. Some reference is made to atomic-powered jet engines he put on airliners but he cannot come up with a propulsion system to launch his rocket into interplanetary space. He put an advertisement in a major New York newspaper offering $100,000 for someone to fly in outer space with him.

      Then an eccentric genius named Wilkins appeared in his office with the plan for a rocket using magnetic levitation and counter gravity to launch the rocket into space. Wilkins tells Crowder that he must junk his current ship and go to a radical new design. Despite Wilkins’ lack of a detailed plan or proof of his qualifications, Crowder agreed to hire him. There were all sorts of challenges in the development process. With the Korean War on there were also all sorts of problems competing with the Defense Department to get the strategic materials necessary to build his rocket. The initial budget for this project was $500 million dollars. Wayne Crowder ended up investing over $1 billion dollars for his rocket to Mars. This would be equal to an expenditure today of $8,637,960,000.00. (1)

    Persistence and hard work leads to the development of a spacecraft that Wilkins envisaged six months later. The last obstacle is the need for one ton of Mercuriam 37 for fuel. (2) This was located in the Belgium Congo. The spacecraft lifted off from New Mexico and heads into space. The eccentric genius Wilkins tells Wayne Crowder they are going to Mars. Crowder tells Wilkins to turn the rocket around and go back to earth. Wilkins admits that he is from Mars and the controls of the ship are locked. The ship lands on Mars. Wilkins is now back home.

     It’s amazing that almost 60 years ago science fiction writers foresaw a privately-financed mission to Mars. I brought this show to the attention of none other than Elon Musk. He thanked me and described it as interesting.

    If you want to watch the program here is the link from IMDB and Hulu:

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2326921753/

(You may need to use the CTRL key before clicking on this link)

(1) $1,000,000,000.00 in 1951 had the same buying power as $8,637,960,000.00 in 2010.

Annual inflation over this period was 3.72%. (www.dollartimes.com)

(2) Mercuriam 37 does not exist in the real world.