Old Time Radio Sci-Fi — X Minus One: "Mars Is Heaven" (1955) | Full Episode

X Minus One is the finest science fiction ever produced for radio — NBC's half hour of adult SF, drawn from the pages of Astounding and Galaxy and adapted by staff writers Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts. "Mars Is Heaven" is its most famous half hour. The first rocket to Mars lands in 1987 and the crew comes down the ladder braced for a hostile world. What they find is Green Bluff, Illinois, 1928 — white frame houses, a bandstand, lilacs, a piano playing down the street, and the people they buried years ago. Lustig's grandparents. Captain Black's brother Edward, on the porch of the house Black grew up in. One by one the crew scatters into the arms of family and the mission simply dissolves. Only Dr. Horst, the ship's psychologist, finds nobody waiting for him, and he is the one who says it out loud: the Martians are telepaths, the town is being read out of the crew's own memories, and every man who walks into a house tonight walks in alone. Adapted by Ernest Kinoy from Ray Bradbury's 1948 story, later folded into The Martian Chronicles. Broadcast May 8, 1955. 🎧 Hundreds more classic radio shows free at https://www.vintageradioshows.com 📱 Listen anywhere with the Vintage Radio app for iPhone and iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vintage-radio/id455577974