The original Journey Into Space radio series ran from 1953 - 1956. I was born during their second season, so even if I'd been British instead of American, I'd be too young to remember it. Still, I've enjoyed other BBC radio dramas I've checked out from my local library, so I thought I'd give this one a try.

It was the crew of the spaceship Ares [the Greek name for Mars] that's been frozen in time since the late 1970s. The captain, 'Jet' Morgan, awakened early because his pod malfunctioned. He must have spent a very lonely 30 years looking after his ship and crew. (From something one of his crew later remarks, I think the person(s) responsible for the idea of keeping an entire crew in suspended animation for a voyage should be charged with criminal negligence, assuming he/they are still alive.

The Ares is running low on fuel. How fortunate that they're near Mars, where the crew of a mining operation has plenty of fuel, but having trouble getting their ship and its cargo off planet.

There's no difficulty awakening the Ares engineer, Mitch, and radio operator, Lemmy, but it looks as if Doc won't make it.

The year is 2013. Of course their ship, opinions, and knowledge are considered outdated by the crew of the mining operation, but the captain and crew still have something to offer.

The mining operation is for-profit. Naturally, this means that their company bigwigs didn't have the good sense to include an actual engineer in the crew. None of them know diddly-squat about how to fix their problem. It's going to take Mitch to get things going again.

Astrid, the computer expert at the mine, is working with Mitch. She also has her own agenda, which allows the audience to wonder if our heroes will find out what's going on behind their backs in time.

I enjoyed the adventure, especially the way the crew dealt with their peril (and some karma involved). There was even a hint that something might be done for Jet at the end. ( )