Dimension X (1950-51) aired Robert A. Heinlein’s “Destination Moon” on June 24, 1950 as its 12th episode. The radio adaptation was based on Heinlein’s (1907-1988) final shooting script for George Pal’s technicolor 1950 film of the same name. The film–and radio adaptation–depicts private industry funding a project to place a man on the moon. More specifically, it was to put an American on the moon before the Soviet Communists, as Heinlein foresaw the looming space race following the end of World War II and the beginning of the Atomic Age along with conflict with the Soviets.
It should be mentioned in passing that my copy of this radio play was obtained from an outside source and not otrcat.com, from which I obtain the vast majority of the shows presented here, and it would not play. I therefore took the show directly from otrcat.com as one of its free downloads. Otrcat.com offers a free listen of a single episode for each of its mp3 discs and by happy coincidence “Destination Moon” was the freebie for its Dimension X disc.
What makes this dramatization of special historical interest is that it was interrupted several minutes near the conclusion by a news flash announcing that North Korea had invaded South Korea (June 25th, 1950 Korean time zone; June 24th, 1950 here in the United States). The date of this posting of “Destination Moon” is June 21st, 2014, three days shy of 64 years since the official announcement of what would become the Korean “conflict,” our first military engagement against the growing communist threat worldwide. Was Heinlein prescient in his desire to get to the moon first…in 1950? We can only speculate.
Play Time: 27:23
{While science fiction fans listened to “Destination Moon” on the radio in June of 1950, the magazine racks at the corner drugstore were replete with science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazines, a few examples of which are shown below. F&SF began in the Fall of 1949 as a quarterly; the issue depicted below was its 3rd and featured reprints along with its original stories. Galaxy would not see its first issue until October of 1950.}
[Left: Astounding SF, June 1950 – Center: F&SF, Summer 1950 – Right: Weird Tales, May/June 1950]
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