The Space Explorers was an animated "feature film" which was later converted to a cartoon "serial" shown during the mad "space race era" of the late 1950's by publisher William Cayton and animator Fred Ladd who is credited with bringing "Astro Boy" from Japan to America.
The animated film series was shown on nationwide television shows such as Claude Kirchner's on WOR-TV, Captain Kangaroo, Captain Video (DuMont), Captain Satellite, Sheriff John, The Merry Mailman, "Officer Joe" Bolton, Romper Room and many others. This cartoon featuring Jimmy, Smitty, and the Professor onboard the Polaris spaceship captured the hearts and minds of children who watched in amazement as new space-related concepts were taught. The most recent sightings of the smoking Polaris spaceship are in the very beginning of Chapter 5 of NOVA's Public Television (PBS) production of "The Elegant Universe - Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" available on DVD. It has also been seen on Mike Myers Saturday Night Live skit "Dieter."
The SpaceExplorers, a group of 26 South Side middle school and high school students, recently made a map of the invisible universe.
Members of the SpaceExplorers monitored the telescope in shifts along with a group of undergraduate students and members of the Ryerson Astronomical Society.
The SpaceExplorers charted the data they collected onto a model celestial sphere measuring 12 feet in diameter, which sits at the top of the stairs on the Kersten Center’s third floor.
Seeking to cash in on the post-Sputnik space boom, Ladd produced The SpaceExplorers 'in collaboration with the Hayden Planetarium of New York' to teach the youth of America the fundamentals of astronomy.
The ten six-minute segments were syndicated to local children's programs across the US and made a powerful impression on a generation of space-crazy youngsters.
There were the awesome views of space through the glazed nose of the Polaris-II.
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