This ran against Ozzie and Harriet, as I remember, as well as my Cub Scout base ball games. It was a fight against the whole family to let the one sci-fi nut of the group to see the one show he really cared about.Looking back at the tapes from this future perspective, it is still the most accurate portrayal of space flight on TV. It is the space program us baby boomers from the 60's wish we had developed and followed thru.If you get a chance, watch it. For a half hour 50/60's series, it's hard to beat. I still remember wishing my parents had bought me that Colonel McCauliffe space suit from the 1960 Sears catalogue.

Like several of us whom have commented, I was about seven years old when this show aired and it made a large and lasting impression on me. I actually negotiated a special Wednesday night bedtime in order to be able to see it. I wanted the Col. McCaulley helmet, but alas, we were of modest means in my household. When the Mercury and Gemini projects were underway, I felt that we were right on track and my friends and I would be pursuing our careers in space. I even majored in aero & astronautical engineering - just when the whole thing succumbed to post-Apollo apathy and Watergate nonsense. Imagine my disappointment. As time went on, I found fewer contemporaries that even remembered 1950's space movie and TV sci-fi, so I largely forgot about it. Then about 4 years ago I came across a source of the entire series of episodes on videotape (for $160). Unbelievable! Some of the episodes are exactly as I remembered them. And unlike a lot of childhood memories, the show turns out to be actually pretty good: It is more technically accurate than anything shown on TV since. You can spot actors like Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Robert Reed (pre-Brady Bunch) and Angie Dickenson (as McCaully's wife in the pilot episode). One of the episodes was written by James Clavell (well before Shogun). For a while in the mid-1960's there was discussion of a sort-of sequel to be called "Beyond the Moon" that would feature 1970's missions envisioned by NASA with technical accuracy. TV Guide carried an article on it. But it never materialized and instead we got mindless stuff like "I Dream of Genie." Anyone interested in this should also look for "Riders to the Stars," "The Conquest of Space," and the recent "October Sky," all of which capture the time of Sputnik and big dreams. This is the way space (and sci-fi) should have been in our lifetime! I invite anyone interested in discussing this further to contact me.

As a 7 year old, I was virtually glued to the TV set every night this program was on. I was probably too young to be objective, in terms of the poetic license taken by the writers, but at least to a young boy each episode seemed believable and fascinating. I understand that the Sci-Fi Channel may occasionally broadcast some of these re-runs. I'd like to see them on Video tape if they're ever made available.

But it was as adult as could be expected. A fine depiction of men (and women? I forget) on the moon operating from space bases. Forty years later we STILL have no moon bases! I remember best the great fear they all had about their space suits being punctured (what WOULD happen, besides "instant death"?). A well done drama. Never rerun, unfortunately.