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)

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.

Notable tropes include:

 * : Averted, even though the series at first merely appears to a fairly realistic drama about the struggle to achieve a manned moon-landing.
 * 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.
 * The Red Planet: In The Red Planet, obviously.
 * Retro Rocket: The Luna.
 * Subspace Ansible: Averted. Becomes a plot point in The Red Planet, when.
 * This Is Sparta: JOURNEY. INTO. SPACE!
 * : Happens to the crew in Journey to the Moon/Operation Luna.