Jeff Duntemann's ContraPositive Diary

There's been some discussion recently on other lists about Space Ship Mars, an interesting cultural artifact that I saw in 1980, up in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, right near the famous locks. I found the photos and figured they're worth a look.

George Ewing WA8WTE threw a party in the summer of 1980, up at his house near Sault Ste. Marie. He had just (or not quite) finished construction, actually, and recruited about 20 of his friends to come up and dismantle the plywood geodesic dome he had been living in for several years while building his own A-frame chalet. He made an enormous inflatable tent out of clear plastic, kept full with an ordinary window exhaust fan, and I think about 15 of us slept in the tent. It was a great time, the weather was perfect, and I swam in Lake Superior, which most people never do, even those who live right on Lake Superior. (Ok, it was Whitefish Bay—but it still must have been a very warm summer up there.)

In the old downtown section, right near the abandoned railroad station, someone had put this tin spaceship thingie up on railroad ties. It had been built to hook on the back end of a fifth-wheel tractor and be hauled around on a pair of wheels built into the structure under the tail. None of us really knew what it had been built for, other than an assumption that it was a tie-in for some 1950s TV show.

And so it was. What we now know is that Space Ship Mars was part of a national promo for the Rocky Jones, Space Ranger show that ran for only one season in 1954. I was only two that year, but the show was filmed (rather than simply broadcast live, as so many shows of that era were) and thus I watched the reruns into the very early 1960s. The shows were released directly into syndication and were sponsored locally, almost always by bread companies. You can see a loaf of bread indistinctly on the left end of the lightning bolt on the ship on the first photo; as best we can tell it's Wonder Bread. (Rocky's face has been removed from the side of ship, but he's on the other end of the lightning bolt.) Apparently three or four of the ships had been built out of surplus military aircraft carcasses, and were exhibited at carnivals, county fairs, and other public gatherings.

The ship had been sealed with sheet metal and pop rivets, but someone else found one of the other units and took some photos of what's left of the interiors. It's a mess, apparently because people unknown were using it as a sort of stationary RV. I don't think the one we saw is still up there in Sault Ste. Marie, and it would be interesting to know what became of them and what they looked like when new. There was a lot of work put into them, and they could not have been cheap.

Higher res scans of the photos are here and here. I'm the third guy from the left on the top photo, and although I can identify about half of the people lined up under the ship, I won't try to pin them down in order. (Amazingly, many of them read Contra.) The group included Tom Snoblen, Todd Johnson, Al Duester, Alice and Angel Insley, Mike Bentley, Barry Gehm, Bill Higgins, Nikki Ballard, Lee Hart, Jim Furstenberg, Bill Leininger, and George Ewing, who took the photos and is not shown. Others were there but I don't recall their names. It was a great trip, and only in part because I was young. (I can't sleep on the ground anymore, sigh.)