World Without End / Satellite in the Sky

What awaits us in the vast reaches of space? The imaginations of moviemakers are always eager to take us there -- as in these two nifty '50s sci-fi voyages. Hugh Marlowe, Rod Taylor and other Mars-mission astronauts skid on a time warp into a future Earth nuked into an era of fear, mutant monstrosities and a diminishing group of subterranean survivors. Can these flyboys from the past somehow preserve a World Without End? A stalwart crew (and a female reporter who sneaks aboard!) guides a stratospheric jet rocket ship on the first space flight in Satellite in the Sky. The mission also involves another first: the outer-space detonation of the feared tritonium bomb. The blast is intended to be a deterrent to all wars. Think it'll work?

• science fiction