To me, this movie is perfection.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A saboteur posing as a scientist strives to destroy the world's first space station.The film is based on a story by Robert A. Heinlein, who shares screenwriting credit with producer Jack Seaman. Apparently the film was made without Heinlein's consent and he disowned it as his work. The film was directed by the mysterious Richard Talmadge.The film is unusual for its time in both attempting to portray space travel in a "realistic" manner (which it does quite well considering it was pre-Apollo), and for depicting a future in which women hold positions of authority and responsibility equal to men; in the film the President of the United States is a woman. Being set in 1970, they were not far off on the space travel, but a bit too optimistic on the presidency.This movie and "Cat-Women of the Moon" (1953) were made using some of the same sets and costumes. The two films were then released within one day of each other. While both are a bit cheesy, they both have their merits.

This low budget science fiction film with story by Robert Heinlein of all people was given to the American movie-going public by Lippert Pictures. Certainly a writer of Heinlein's reputation in the science fiction genre deserved better than a film by Lippert.We're into the future, 1970 to be precise and the Cold War is still going on and it's race to the moon to see who can establish a base there and point missiles at Earth. There's a US constructed and operated space station out there already and the Communists want to see it destroyed and our progress in space halted and maybe even reversed.What to do but plant a spy on board a mission to the moon who will take over the ship and destroy the space station. The spy is Larry Johns who is discovered by that tried and true device so popular during World War II, knowledge of baseball. I mean anybody who's never heard of the Brooklyn Dodgers has to be an enemy agent. And here the Dodgers never went west.As if problems with Russian spies isn't enough, pilot Donna Martell and co-pilot Ross Ford are feuding. She was jumped over him in rank and given the first orbital space flight due to her sex and Ford doesn't like it. He kind of likes her though and they do get kind of close.Even seen from a Cold War perspective I have to believe that Heinlein's story was a great deal more complex. The sets are Lippert style cheap and the story is to ridiculous to describe further. Even the Man in the Moon winced.

Failed TV show becomes a wildly uneven feature film about a space station and misdirected space shot becoming the first moonbase. Weird mix of comedy, drama and science fiction with more than a dash of (unnamed) anti-communist propaganda doesn't seem sure what it wants to be. Worse you don't know whether you're supposed to laugh at or with the film. The mere fact that this was an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in its early days gives you an idea about how odd the film is. Its regrettably not very good and there's a good chance you'll end up turning the film off before the ending. Robert Heinlein was unhappy with the finished product because the TV show he worked on was changed against his wishes. Looking at the film and guessing what he actually had a hand in, I'm pretty sure that the evil "red" plot is his, I think that the film would still be quite silly- especially in retrospect. For bad film lovers or Heinlein completeists only.

What you would think of this film depends entirely upon your own sense of humor. As pointed out ad nauseum by other reviewers, this was the subject of a skewering by "Mystery Science Theater 3000", and there is no reason why you can't watch and enjoy it just as much supplying your own wisecracks in place of those of the MST3K's writers. A true campfest, it clearly wasn't intended to be taken entirely seriously even when it was first released in 1953. It is certainly as amusing as anything you are likely to see on "David Letterman." It is also interesting for what it reveals about 1950's conceptions of the future and the science and technology of space travel (this four years before ANY satellite had ever been launched) in comparison with what we now take for granted at this late date of 2008, as well as the way in which science fiction was expected to be portrayed at that time (when technical theorizing and "gee-whiz" gadgetry were about mandatory in the genre -- just check out the cordless telephones!), even apart from the more obvious social commentary it provides.Thus, while judging it as a serious effort might rate two stars or so, for more lighthearted viewers you can probably bump that up to as high as a six, if not even higher if this kind of thing is just what you are in the mood for. In that regard, I have to wonder how many people under 40 would really appreciate it.