Patrolling the Spaceways: <i>Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Stand By for Mars!</i> by Carey Rockwell

In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.

In the years after World War II, the television industry was exploding throughout the world, and the new medium was hungry for content. With various new scientific advances transforming society, science fiction was a natural fit for television. Thus were born the adventures of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. While not widely remembered today, at the time the character was ubiquitous, broadcast on television and radio, appearing in books, comic books, and newspaper comic strips, and also in merchandise. Today, I’m going to look back at that character and his adventures, and while the stories haven’t aged terribly well, they are still a lot of fun.

My own first exposure to Tom Corbett was through a reel for a View-Master 3D viewer that my parents bought for me and my brothers when I was young. It came with three sample reels. One, I believe, was a set of nature pictures. The second was about the Apollo space program, and I think it was conceptual, because this was before the first moon landing. And the third reel portrayed the adventures of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. To get the 3D effect, the images were created by taking pictures of highly detailed dioramas. I remember the spaceships that looked like a cross between a V2 rocket and a hood ornament, and the vividly colored space suits with their bubble helmets. One of the pictures depicted an alien ruin on an asteroid, which revealed the fact that the asteroids were the remains of what had been the fifth planet of the solar system. I was fascinated by these images, so vivid that they made the fantastic look real. Later, we got a View-Master projector, so we could look at the pictures (in 2D) on a screen. We covered a card table with blankets, drew control panels on cardboard, and used the View-Master projector to put images on our viewscreen. We spent hours imagining we were following Tom Corbett around the Solar System. Years later, at a science fiction convention, I finally got a chance to see a recording of the old TV show and was disappointed, as the grainy black and white images, primitive sets, corny scripts, and stiff acting did not live up to the imaginary adventures triggered by those 3D color View-Master images.

The copy of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet: Stand By for Mars! that I am using for this review is a trade paperback published in 2017 by Rocket Science Books, and edited by Tom English, who provided an introduction for this edition. The original series of eight Tom Corbett books was first published by Grosset & Dunlap from 1952 to 1956.

About the Author

Carey Rockwell is the “house name” for the writer of the Tom Corbett series, the pseudonym used by the publisher instead of the names of the author or authors who actually wrote the books. As a result, the identity of those authors remains unknown. In the introduction, reprint editor Tom English states that the creator of the series, Joseph Greene, a pulp science fiction author, was an editor at Grosset & Dunlap when the Tom Corbett series was released, and likely had a hand in creating at least the first book, if not writing it himself. The series also credited German rocket scientist Willy Ley as a technical advisor, although given some of the things portrayed in the first book, I doubt he got a final vote on what appeared on its pages.

The History of Tom Corbett

Because the series shared a name with Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet (which I previously reviewed here), I’d always imagined he had a hand in its creation. But it turns out the history is a bit more complicated. As Tom English describes in the introduction, it was author Joseph Greene who created the series, years before Heinlein wrote his juvenile. Greene first created a script for a Space Academy comic book in 1945, but was unable to sell it, even when he reimagined it as a newspaper strip, and then as a radio drama. But the success of Heinlein’s 1948 book changed Greene’s fortunes, and he was able to sell the idea to CBS for a television series. I have read in other sources that the producers licensed the title Space Cadet from Heinlein, as they liked it better than the original Space Academy title, and wanted to avoid lawsuits over similarities between the two works.

The television series ran for five seasons, although it bounced between four different networks during that run. It followed the adventures of three space cadets—pilot Tom Corbett, astrogator and radar operator Roger Manning, and engineer Astro; all members of the Solar Alliance’s Solar Guard—who travel the Solar System in their atomic rocket, Polaris. Action generally took place at the Space Academy on Earth, in the control room of Polaris, or at various destinations on other worlds. Often, special effects were seen through Polaris’ viewscreen, which helped mitigate their rudimentary nature. The spacesuits were rather flamboyant, in a vivid blue, with a large V on their chest and metal studs adorning the neck and wrists of the jackets. Clear “fishbowl” helmets were worn when working outside the ship. More traditional cloth uniforms were worn in Academy scenes. The stories take place in a solar system that reflects the consensus of most science fiction of its time, with three habitable planets: the Earth, a swampy and prehistoric Venus, and a dry and dusty Mars.

Stand By for Mars!

The book opens with the arrival of Tom Corbett at the Space Academy, where he immediately faces the fierce disciplinarian Warrant Officer McKenny (the Space Academy is an overwhelmingly male operation, whose only nod at diversity is the fact that its cadets come from three different planets). Tom meets the arrogant Roger Manning, who has browbeaten the stolid Venusian Astro into carrying his luggage. Of the three, only Astro has any real spacefaring experience, having served aboard commercial freighters. They all take their oath, and become official Space Cadets.

They meet Doctor Joan Dale, the only female member of the Space Guard (despite the story being set centuries in the future, they did not foresee any advances in gender equality). She oversees cadet assignments, divided into four specialties: control-deck, astrogation, power-deck, and science (with the first three categories being shipboard, and the fourth serving at the Academy).

At this point I took a look at the Goodreads website, wondering what others thought of the book. The general consensus seemed to be positive, with an overall rating of 3.75 out of 5, although many of those positive comments were obviously tinged with nostalgia. Some readers pointed out that the author seemed to be inordinately interested in shirtless men, as there were numerous references to the cadets taking showers, taking off their shirts for athletics, or stripping to the waist for work. And as I continued reading, I found myself glad I hadn’t made finding these references into a drinking game, because there were indeed a lot of shirts removed—something I hadn’t expected to find in a juvenile novel. Another comment that surprised me was a remark that while the book wasn’t great, at least it wasn’t as bad as Heinlein’s Have Spacesuit—Will Travel (if you read my review of that book, you’ll know that comment didn’t go over well with me).

Tom is assigned to control-deck, Roger is assigned to astrogation, Astro is assigned to power-deck, and the three of them are directed to train together as a crew. Despite matching well on paper, Roger’s sarcasm is a constant barrier to them working as an effective team, and Captain Strong makes it his personal challenge to snap the team together. Roger’s abrasive attitude is clearly the result of some sort of trauma, the cause of which should have been obvious to the Academy staff, but it plays out as a mystery not revealed until later in the book. Tom and Roger square off one night after hours in a boxing match that unfortunately fails to relieve any tensions in the group. As they prepare for competency exams, Roger belittles Astro. This seems cruel, but Roger has seen that Astro fights harder when he is under pressure. And despite their differences, the three cadets pass their exams, excel in their categories, and are soon assigned to the training ship Polaris.

There is a passing comment to let us know that ships crewed by cadets are equipped with non-lethal paralo-ray small arms, but also have a few atomic warheads aboard for emergencies, which doesn’t sound so non-lethal to me. The idea of sending out ships staffed only by cadets also sounds strange, as opposed to the standard practice of sending midshipmen out to serve alongside experienced officers (which Heinlein incorporated into his Space Cadet book). There is a big tournament where the Polaris crew competes with others in a mercuryball tournament. Mercuryballs have a tube partially filled with mercury inside, which makes their movements sometimes unpredictable—a good way to train pilots to respond to the unexpected. The three cadets bicker, but end up winning in the end. They are given a well-deserved liberty trip, but are soon called back to the Academy to take part in an exercise, their first space maneuvers.

The exercise will simulate an attack on Luna, with Polaris serving as flagship of the squadrons assigned to defense. Thanks to some quick thinking by Tom, the defenders succeed. But before the crew can celebrate, a distress call comes in from the freighter Lady Venus, and Polaris is dispatched to assist, with Captain Strong coming aboard to assist them. The crew and passengers of Lady Venus are transferred to Polaris, but Tom, Roger and Astro stay aboard Lady Venus to try to save the ship. The engineering spaces have been flooded with radiation, and they must rely on their lead-lined spacesuits for protection. They succeed in jettisoning radioactive debris just before it explodes (everyone seems happy with them for doing this, but while I can see risking lives in order to save other lives, I can’t see risking their lives to save property, especially property contaminated by radiation leaks). Polaris and Lady Venus are ordered to proceed to Mars, which confused me, because they had been in Earth/Lunar space, and the trip to Mars is a long one for rockets using an atomic pile to heat reaction mass (for more on that topic, here is a good website for further reading). So they blast toward Mars at the highest possible speed.

But when it comes time to brake for Mars, the cadets realize they don’t have the reaction mass needed to slow down (something they should have thought about before they blasted toward the planet). Fortunately, their course will bring them to Mars on a tangent, rather than just augering straight into the ground, and they survive a nasty crash landing in the desert (which near as I can tell is not just improbable, it is downright impossible). The author seems to adhere to the theory that all deserts are hot deserts (which isn’t true even on Earth, and certainly isn’t true on Mars), and the cadets have to trek their way to the nearest canal, and then to the nearest atmosphere booster station. They make it to safety, ready to face more adventures in the future.

Final Thoughts

The adventures are fun, but it is the interplay between the three cadets that is the heart of the book. Their relationships keep the reader engaged and caring about them, especially after Roger’s hard exterior is explained. (Some sources have commented that the entertaining interplay between the cadets foreshadows the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in the original Star Trek). The book has some corny elements, outdated social attitudes, and some science that will cause your teeth to grind (which makes me think Willy Ley’s involvement was minimal), but it has a lot of energy and heart. This book is nowhere near as good as any of the Heinlein juveniles, but it is entertaining—even if you only read it as an example of the history of science fiction, it’s worth a look.

And if you have any thoughts on either Tom Corbett in general or Stand By for Mars! in particular, I’d love to hear them.