The dream didn't die there, though, and later years brought other rocket ship constructions. Here to see what I really would have liked to have.)

Pretty much destroyed any 21 st century lines it may have had, and the thing was unceremoniously thrown out. I performed a few enthusiastic barrel rolls in it which ROCKETSHIP project left a very bad taste in my five- or six-year-old mouth. I think the bulb they shipped was bad, and the whole GIANT SIX FOOT It was of theĬheapest imaginable construction and didn't work. In the center of the lamely-printed piece ofĬardboard that served as the control panel was a flashlight bulb connected to some wires and a battery holder. Worst of all, though, was the 'illuminated' control panel. Would prove a blessing later, as I will relate.) So the outside hull of my rocket had incongruous pieces of yellowish paper masking (The masking tape we always had around the house More, Dad had to construct the thing, and he generally made a botch of it and patched areas with some of the masking tape he'dįrequently liberate from Lockheed, where he worked as a maintenance painter. First of all, it was cardboard, not a space age titanium alloy. When the rocket finally arrived it was a major disappointment. But I prevailed upon my parents, and they sent a check to Honor House in far off Lynbrook, New York, and I waited the requisite four to six weeks in agony. Finished product here.) It was only $4.98, which now seems like a pittance but then was a fortune, the comic book it was advertised in costing only twelve cents. So if I couldn't actually be launched into space (NASA cruelly having no plans to put boys into orbit) I could at least pretend I was, and my heart's desire was found within the pages of Superman comics: the Honor House 'Gigantic' Jet Rocket Space Ship with 'Illuminated control panel!' ( There's a good description of it here. Here it is! It was like seeing an old friend again.) (Note: Thanks to a recent viewing of the film Angry Red Planet (1959), where this map appeared in a scene, I found an image of it on the Internet. Noises I supposed twinkling stars must make, if one had the ears to hear them. I recall falling asleep to the gentle 'tings' of the bulbs flashing on and off, making the same kinds of I directed her as to what colors were appropriateįor each planet: red for Mars, yellow for Saturn, blue for earth, green for Venus, etc., and the thing was hung up over my bed and left Holes in the center of each planet and wired blinking Christmas lights into each hole. and pasted this onto a big piece of plywood. The planets in their orbits - listing planetary mass, rotational period, etc. Mom, bless her craftsy heart, recognized and helped along my interest in space as best she could. At that time in my life, the most valuable things on earth were five-inch pieces of wood we would nail into the crate frames for use as levers and controls, and if outer space occasionally smelled like old lettuce or tomatoes, we didn't care. I was that boy.Īn early memory was playing rocket ships in rickety wooden produce crates we'd get from the nearby grocery store I must have been four or five. Have you ever seen Disney's 'Rocketman?' At the beginning of the film the main character is a boy who seats himself in his mother's dryer so he can look out the circular glass port at what he pretends is the limitless reaches of outer space.

Dinosaurs were for babies what I wanted was to be a tough guy seated in a tiny capsule at the pointy end of a multi-megaton three-stage booster rocket. When I was five or six years old my greatest desire in the world was to be an astronaut, and space exploration was at the core of most of my play activities.

And why wouldn't I be? The early Sixties saw the beginnings of the American space effort, and John Glenn and those daring first astronauts were my heroes and the heroes of boys in nearly every neighborhood across the U.S.

Spaceship control panel toy