Music of the Spheres

Music of the Spheres
by Guy Murchie
1961
illustrated by the author

A book about space, time and matter — the great adventure of our age.

Contents:

• Out From the Breathing Earth
• Into the Stomach of Space
• Invitation to the Moon
• Our Sister Planets
• Gadflies of the Void
• Introduction to the Sun
• The Cousin Stars
• The Foreign Galaxies
• Stuff of the Worlds
• The Netherrealm of the Atom
• Of Waves and Music
• Of Light and Color
• Of Space, Of Time
• The Sinews of Reality

Of All Possible Worlds

Of All Possible Worlds
by William Tenn
1955

Contains the following Tenn classics:

• Introduction: On the Fiction in Science Fiction
  
• Down Among the Dead Men (Galaxy 1954)
  
• Me, Myself and I (Planet, Winter 1947)
  
• The Liberation of Earth (Future, May 1953)
  
• Everybody Loves Irving Bommer (Fantastic Adventures, Aug 1951)
  
• Flirgleflip (Fantastic Adventures, May 1950)
  
• The Tenants (F&SF, 1954)
  
• The Custodian (IF, Nov 1953)

William Tenn is the pseudonym for the science fiction work of Philip Klass. Born May 9, 1920, in London, England, he moved to New York where he grew up in Brooklyn. Since 1945, he has written academic articles, essays, two novels and more than 60 short stories.

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia ranked Tenn as "one of the genre's very few genuinely comic, genuinely incisive writers of short fiction."

Bibliography

• Children of Wonder (1953)
• Of All Possible Worlds (1955)
• The Human Angle (1956)
• Time in Advance (1958)
• A Lamp for Medusa (novella published as a double with The Players of Hell by Dave Van Arnam) (1968)
• Of Men and Monsters (1968) (novel)
• Once Against the Law (1968) (anthology of crime fiction edited by Tenn and Donald E. Westlake)
• The Seven Sexes (1968)
• The Square Root of Man (1968)
• The Wooden Star (1968)
• Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume I (omnibus) (2000)
• Here Comes Civilization: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume II (ominbus) (2001)
• Dancing Naked, the Unexpurgated William Tenn (nonfiction omnibus) (2004) [Hugo Nominee, Best Related Book, 2005]

External Links:

• William Tenn official site

The Collier's Space Flight Series

For the early part of the decade a series of stories featured in eight issues of Colliers, penned by the brightest rocket scientists of the day and brilliantly illustrated by Chesley Bonestell, sparked the imagination of the American public. For a summary of the Colliers series of articles concerning the possibilities of manned spaceflight, launch: The Ugly Spaceship.

Man Will Conquer Space Soon (March 22, 1952)

Man on the Moon/The Journey/Inside the Moon Ship (Oct 18, 1952)

(not featured on cover)
Man on the Moon/Inside the Lunar Base (Oct 25, 1952)

World's First Space Suit (Feb 28, 1953)

(not featured on cover)
Testing the Men in Space (March 7, 1953)

How Man Will Meet Emergency In Space Travel (March 14, 1953)

Baby Space Station (June 27, 1953)

Can We Get to Mars?/Is There Life on Mars? (April 30, 1954)

Imagination Unlimited

More illustrations from the ink of Edd Cartier - imagination unlimited. His depictions of alien lifeforms and futuristic gadgetry are unparalleled.

Dimension X & X Minus One

Dimension X aired on NBC radio from 1950-51.

X Minus One aired on NBC radio from 24 April 1955 until 9 January 1958 for a total of 124 episodes during its run.

X Minus One was an extension of Dimension X . The first fifteen scripts used for X Minus One were scripts used in the airing of Dimension X; however, it soon found its own little niche. The stories for the show came from two of the most popular science fiction magazines at the time; Astounding and Galaxy.

Dimension X was first heard on NBC April 8, 1950, and ran until September 29, 1951. This program was the first true series dedicated to the science fiction genre. Until the premiere of Dimension X -- a full two decades after network radio was established -- there were no major science fiction series of broad appeal to adults.

Special Thanks to OTRR and Internet Archive for offering these radio programs free for download to the public:

• Dimension X
• X Minus One

What If?...

What if history played out the way one pioneering visionary had dreamed of it?

Man Conquers Space - The Conquest of Moon and Mars

What if America had followed through with Dr. Wernher von Braun's original, expensive and ambitious vision of travelling to the Moon, and then on to Mars beginning with the resources and science available in the 1950's? This filmmaker attempts to put the whole story together on the screen of that grand vision.

Edd Cartier - Artist of the Other Worldly

A favorite artist of the SF pulp/digest magazine era - Edd Cartier illustration from the pages of Astounding Science Fiction. Never one to fall short on imagination, the artist even created illustrations for an entire interseller zoo in the book "Travelers of Space."

Edd Cartier (born 1914) is an American pulp magazine illustrator. After studying at Pratt Institute in the 1930s he worked for Street and Smith, publishers of the Shadow, to which he contributed many interior illustrations, and the John W. Campbell, Jr.-edited magazines Astounding Science Fiction and Unknown.

Outside Links:

• Edd Cartier at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• An interview with Cartier
• Edd Cartier gallery

Disney's Man In Space

Disney's Man in Space - Conquest of Space - Launch! Von Braun's vision comes alive in 1955 with a little help from the Disney animators. This clip features a retriever rocket and a wheel-type space station.

Launch eight segments of this historic film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75vX6O8paGo

Interplanetary Traveler

from "The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed" (Fawcett Book 166), 1952.

The Sound Barrier Awaits

The date is June 18, 1947. The place is Muroc AFB. B29 and two XS-1 rocket planes. The one at center is lowered down a ramp to be mated to the mothership's belly.

"The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed" (1952)

"The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed"
Fawcett Book Number 166
Author: Larry Eisinger (editor-in-chief)
Publisher: Fawcett (Sterling Publishing Co.) NY 1952
magazine, 144 pages
original price: $.75

Contents

1. Spaceships are Already Here!, by Harland Manchester
   
2. The Physical Problems of Space Travel Are Being Solved, by James L. H. Peck
   
3. A Journey to the Moon, by M. W. Wholey, G. I. Mech. E.
   
4. From the Moon to Mars, by Willy Ley
5. Life on Other Worlds, by M. Frederic Sanchez, PH. D.
   
6. Communication With Other Worlds, by Willy Ley
7. The Expanding Universe, by Lloyd Mallan
   
8. Space Travel is a Serious Business, by Alfred Eris
   
9. Space Travel in History, Fiction & Film, by Lloyd Mallan
   
10. Fortress on a Skyhook, by Frank Tinsley
    
11. Possibilities for an Invasion Base on the Moon, by Willy Ley
12. A Case for the Flying Saucers, by Donald E. Keyhoe
13. An Investigation of the Carolina Saucer, by John Duberry
    

Profusely illustrated with nearly 300 photos (B/W). Subjects include rocket development, space travel, life on other worlds, science fiction movies and flying saucers. Cover photo is from the movie When Worlds Collide (George Pal/Paramount Pictures).

Electrolux Death Ray

Cunningly developed by Brotron Labs from an Electrolux vacuum atop a Steelcase chair base. A no nonsense, cut-to-the-chase destroyer. Please use responisbly.



Watch the Brotonic Weapons Death Ray demonstration.

Worlds in Space

dust jacket for the London-published edition

"Worlds in Space"
by Martin Caidin
illustrated by Fred L. Wolff
published 1954
Sidgwick and Jackson, London
212 pages, 64 plates (16 photographs, 48 drawings)

Contents:

1. This is how we stand
2. Robots into space
3. The weakest link–man
4. The first space ships
5. The space satellite
6. Earth below
7. Expedition across space
8. On the moon to stay
9. Fortress in the sky?
10. Beyond the moon
    

"Five years have passed since February 24th, 1949, when a V-2 rocket soared upward at 5,100 miles per hour and set a new record at 252 miles above the earth's surface...[Worlds in Space] tells the history of rocket development thus far and reveals the steps by which man will eventually travel to other planets."

dust jacket of American edition


hard cover embellishment

"The three-stage space ship envisioned by Dr. Wernher von Braun, who has been carrying out an extensive publicity campaign in favour of space travel now. Von Braun's three-stage space ship is designed to carry a crew of about six men and 34 tons of cargo to an orbit 1,075 miles above the earth, where a space satellite will be assembled, to whirl about the earth at a velocity of 15,840 miles per hour."

illustration by Fred L. Wolff


"A combination of proposals from both sides of the Atlantic. The space satellite depicted in its final stages of construction is the design proposal of von Braun, the space ships indicated a variation of a delta-wing suggestion by R. A. Smith of the British Interplanetary Society."

illustration by Fred L. Wolff

Jet Assisted Moon Rocket

all paintings by Chesley Bonestell,
from The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed, 1952

USAF Saucer

The AVRO-Car, a ducted-fan driven saucer.

Originally produced by AVRO in Canada, the USAF contracted AVRO to continue development the hovercraft project. Whether this was a truly experimental project, or a mere ruse to fool the Russians is up to debate.

An Unconventional Time

Undated photo of the jet-powered Northrop NS-97.

The post-war era. Dr. Von Braun. Missiles. The Space Race. Rocket technology. Willy Ley. Little green men. Cold War. Ex-German Science know-how. Colliers. Rocky Jones. White Sands. Flying Discs. It was an uncertain, unconventional time which called for equally unconventional means to gain the upperhand with the ulimate prize being the sole controlled access to space.


1/11 Update:
Look at IFO Picture Library Quoting from the source, "Dick Stasinos designed this saucer, in 1950. He was an engineering graduate of the Northrop Aeronautical Institute. Stasinos’s disc had a revolving outer shell and held eight turbo-jet ports. The center of the disc stayed stationary, along with the cockpit for the pilot. Two main jets provided the push and the eight jets provided the spin."

The X-15 Rollout

The first X-15 (56-6670) rocket powered research aircraft is rolled out in 1958. At this time, the XLR-99 rocket engine is not ready, so to make the low-speed flights (below Mach 3), the X-15 team will fit a pair of XLR-11 engines into the modified rear fuselage. These were basically the same engines used in the X-1 aircraft.

The X-15 is a product of the accumulated knowledge of manned rocket craft, the first true spacecraft, with hope to make our first flight to the edge of space.

Life on Other Worlds

Whether or not intelligent life may exist on other planets
of our system, chances are it does throughout the universe.

The drawings here are by Edd Cartier, originally from the book, "Travelers of Space" published by Gnome Press, New York, and reprinted in "The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed," published by Fawcett, 1952.

"on some unknown planet revolving about a distant sun, conditions conceivably could develop a being part insect, part bird."

(left) weird conception of artist here suggests combination of fish, mammal.
(center) for this creature, artist used parts of octopus and carniverous plant.
(right) an enviroment unlike that of earth might condition insect animals.

despite all these weird creatures imagined by well known science fiction illustrator edd cartier, the probability that intelligent life on other planets would have developed in a matter similar to our own


(left) a planet like jupiter, with poison gases in atmosphere, might sustain life like this.
(right) silicon-cell insects on earth have been known to live indefinitely in kerosene.

"artist frank tinsley has this conception of life on jupiter: regardless of form, however, cell-content and structure develop from a limited set of favorable conditions.

from The Mystery of Other Worlds Revealed, 1952