Journey Into Space - The Red Planet Episode 1

[ChrisGreaves]

"June 15th, 1972, Earth time, seven years since man first conquered space ...".
So begins Episode one.
Prescient, yes?
The year was 1954. I was eight years old, living with my parents in The Vicarage in Goodshaw, 22 miles north of Manchester. A Vewy Pwoper son of an Extwemely Pwoper Edwardian Minister. He was Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Shakespeare. I was Meccano set, gear ratios, slewing jibs, pulley-blocks and so on.

I don't know how I managed to listen to the series, but listen I did, never missed an episode on Sunday afternoon (I think it was) until something came up and I missed that episode. The series was also broadcast Wednesday evenings, which was a church night, but that Wednesday I was allowed to stay home and listen to the missed episode. I tell you that because not being at church with my Edwardian Daddy was a serious matter, and this dispensation is an indication of at least one of my parent's (probably Mummy's) feeling of how important this story was to me.
I am amazed that at eight years old my fascination with secular programs trumped statutory observance of the Family Business.

The Wonder Book Of Things To Do had a story on space, with a picture of a rocket (about six inches diameter and about fifteen feet tall) on some sort of salt pan, with the caption "One day, we hope to be able to send monkeys into space!". No mention of dogs. Or men. Or women. Or rich tourists. All this before May 23rd 1956, the day we emigrated.

I plan to listen to all 20 episodes, once I have finished The History of the English Language Podcast. And in doing so, perhaps I can be a nine-year old again, with a Meccano set and the unknown promise of a whole life ahead of me!

Wikipedia has an article.
Cheers
Chris

[BobH]

Wasn't Sputnik launched in 1956? Or, was it '57?

[ChrisGreaves]

Wasn't Sputnik launched in 1956? Or, was it '57?

Yes!

Wikepdia says 4 October 1957. I witnessed its first passage over Southern Cross on the day it was launched. Around 7pm Australian Western Standard Time.

Of course, a great deal depends on how we argue about define "man conquered space" and in particular "space".
Tourists will be fleeced of their dollars (OK; I am insanely jealous) for a space-flight that does little more than skim the outer layers of Earth's atmosphere.
One could define "entering space" when some body other than Earth exerts a greater gravitational effect than does Earth. Lunar orbit would satisfy that definition.
As would walking on the moon.
One could define space as being beyond the limits of the solar system, be it gravity, heliosphere, furthest recorded solid object, and so on.

As for "conquering" this sounds to me a lot like "Fluency in French". To most North Americans I am fluent in French because my French is indistinguishable from Parisian French. As it is to native Parisians, for about thirty seconds, then it becomes clear that i have a superb musical memory and over about three years of Parisian Life have managed to record about two hundred "tunes" in my head. The way to the station? Parisians think I am fluent. The best station to use to get to Maule? Well, if we are standing outside Gare Montparnasse, same deal. If we are on Rue de Mouzaia, tricky!

In other words "fluency" sits on a spectrum ranging from "about ten seconds" to "OK Chris, enough showing off; we get it; you can speak French".

So it is with "man has conquered space". John Glen did something I have never and will never do - look down upon Perth City at night-time. To my mind he conquered space and I never will.

I think that a series begun in 1953, based on an idea surely pre-53, was pretty good in terms of "man entering space" but obviously falls short of its target (to coin a phrase) in reaching the planet Mars!

(later) "However, in 1986, a set of misfiled Transcription discs were found by Ted Kendall, a BBC recording engineer, which turned out to be copies of Operation Luna, The Red Planet and The World in Peril. The BBC no longer possessed a suitable turntable on which to play the discs, but Kendall eventually managed to obtain an EMT 927 turntable. To clean the discs, he soaked them in warm water containing Fairy Liquid, brushed them with a goats-hair brush, and dried them using kitchen towels.[15]

Kendall then transferred the recordings to magnetic tape, removing "clicks" from the sound using a device which he designed and built, called the Mousetrap (or Front End). He removed more severe clicks after the transfer, by scraping the oxide off the magnetic tape in appropriate places.[15] "

We've all done that, haven't we? Scraped oxide off mag tapes as a "quick and dirty" way of editing data ...

Cheers
Chris