Journey Into Space

Journey into Space was a BBC radio series written by Charles Chilton. It was originally broadcast from 1953 to 1958 but set initially in the distant future of 1965.

The original series consists of:

• Journey to the Moon (1953-4), remade in 1958 as Operation Luna as the original tapes had been wiped.
• The Red Planet (1954-5)
• The World in Peril (1955-6)

Several further one-off installments were produced after the original run:

• The Return from Mars (1981)
• Frozen in Time (2008)
• The Host (2009)

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The main characters are:

• Andrew “Jet” Morgan: Stiff upper lipped captain and The Hero.
• Stephen “Mitch” Mitchell: the hot-headed Australian engineer and The Lancer.
• Doc Matthews: The McCoy and The Heart. Canadian. Much of the series’ exposition was delivered through Doc’s diary.
• Lemuel “Lemmy” Barnet: Cockney radio operator, The Woobie and The Everyman.

Tropes used in Journey Into Space include:

• The Commonwealth: The crew is British, Canadian and Australian. Possibly Creator Provincialism.
• Cool Ship: The Luna and the Discovery.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Jet is sanguine, Mitch is choleric, Doc is melancholic and Lemmy is phlegmatic and/or supine.
• FTL Travel: Averted. Space travel is limited to the inner planets, and takes a very long time until the aliens show up.
• The Red Planet: In The Red Planet, obviously.
• Retro Rocket: The Luna.
• Subspace Ansible: Averted. Becomes a plot point in The Red Planet, when the lack of any delay in communicating with Earth alerts the crew to the fact that the voice is an imposter.
• This Is Sparta: JOURNEY. INTO. SPACE!

Spoiler Tropes

• Absent Aliens: Averted, even though the series at first merely appears to a fairly realistic drama about the struggle to achieve a manned moon-landing.
• Time Travel: Happens to the crew in Journey to the Moon/Operation Luna.