Men Into Space • CBS
CHARACTER: Captain Jim Nicholls
EPISODE: "Mission to Mars" (#1.32)
AIRDATE: 25 May 1960

CHARACTER: Captain Jim Nicholls
EPISODE: "Lost Missile" (#1.5)
AIRDATE: 4 November 1959

SERIES DESCRIPTION: The black & white science fiction series was television's first attempt at showing what mankind's future in space might become. It followed the adventures of Colonel Edward McCauley (William Lundigan) as he travelled by rocket ship from a space station to a moonbase and to other planets in our solar system.

CBS decided to produce Men Into Space as a direct response to the launching of the first man-made satellite (Sputnik) by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. That event drew the public's attention to the exploration of space like never before.

Every effort was made to keep the scripts and props based on scientific fact as much as possible. Numerous scientists and the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force provided assistance in production of the show.