The 1950 film Destination Moon is another classic that predates the space age, like Explorers on the Moon. But it’s one of the first to deal with space travel in a somewhat realistic way, almost two decades before astronauts landed on the Moon, and even before the first rockets brought the first satellites into orbit.

The suits used in the film look pretty cool. They’re not exactly what we ended up using for Lunar EVAs, but they get all the basics: flexible joints, detachable helmets, life support, and so forth. They even color-coded each astronaut so that the audience could tell each character apart. NASA only figured that out after Apollo 11, when people couldn’t tell the astronauts apart on the television broadcasts, and slapped some stripes onto the mission commander’s suit.

destination moon

destination moon

They even color-coded each astronaut so that the audience could tell each character apart. NASA only figured that out after Apollo 11, when people couldn’t tell the astronauts apart on the television broadcasts, and slapped some stripes onto the mission commander’s suit.

Topics

Space suits from science fiction

Martian spacesuit

Space suits are cool — and complicated. Unsurprisingly, science fiction writers, movie directors, and prop-makers also love space suits — you’ll find them everywhere from Robert A. Heinlein’s novel Have Space Suit — Will Travel, to the latest Alien movie. But not everybody does their homework: for every fictional space ...