Long before the advent of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, there was “Tom Corbett Space Cadet.” And the camaraderie’s of fiction characters that we came to know and adsorb so well in “Star Trek” in 1966, was successfully captured here first in the early 1950’s.

Tom Corbett (Frankie Thomas), the wise cracking Roger (Jan Merlin) and the Venusian, Astro (??) . I didn’t know of a single kid on my block or in my grade school who didn’t use the character Roger’s famous term – “Aw go blast your jets!” It was a great show for its time and, in many ways, ahead of its time.

Long live the crew of the Polaris!