Assignment: Outer Space

OK, bad FX but given it was 1960 don't be too harsh in that judgment. Not having seen all SF films from that era it's hard to say whether it was below standard or not. Star Trek didn't get so much better by 1967, substituting flashing lights for analog gauges and completely rewriting/ignoring physics. I liked some of the techno babble here - the multi-stage rocket, the sleep chamber, the arched trusses inside the space station, weightlessness, hydrazine, the paramilitary dialogue. Tossing objects out to detect the beams and stay in the middle seems reasonable and inventive for a mere reporter. "Pecking the lobe" is an electronic way to do the same thing against enemy radar in modern warfare. There was a story here but things got compromised, as usual in movies time and space (ie distances), are ignored in order to cut to the chase (see Armageddon, 1997). The guy waxing philosophical during his space walk has been done in almost every space movie since, and even Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, et al spoke that way once on earth. Anyhow, good for a laugh.