Evening star., 1951-09-12
Space Cadet and Us 'Eorthworms'

The Star calls the attention of it's readers
to its new comic strip entitled space Cadet"
Apparently this is to be an adventure story in
which oddly garbed young men with names like
castro" are going to look down their noses at
us "earthworms" while they engage in all sorts
of frolic and derring-do among the reeling plan
cts. Apparently too, they will be even more
advanced in their ways than Flash Gordon,
Buck Rogers Superman and similar Hopalong
CaSsidys who ride the ranges of the sky from
here to Mars and far beyond to the outermost
reaches of the heavens.
Many people, not entirely without reason
have had their fill of such stuff regarding it as
a terribly ridiculous bore. Speaking for itself,
however, The Star must confess that it some
times is filled with the strange and creepy feel
ing-a kind of psychic suspicion or eerie premo-
nition-that the world, without being aware of
it, has already left the 10th century far behind
and that "Astro" and all the other queer inter-
planetary characters in the comic strips may in
fact be much closer to reality than are whole
some Americans like Buz Sawyer, Kerry Drake
Beetle Bailey or even the inimitably wise and
level-headed little Pogo. /,
At any rate in the light of what has been
happening ever since the development of radar
and the harnessing of the atom several years
ago. The Star has come around to the view that
"earthworms' cannot afford to be too cocksure
or dogmatic in pooh-poohing the common sense
of stories like Space Cadet" After ALL what
about A-weapons-w that can now be
delivered even by relatively small bomberS
taking off from aircraft carriers? And what
about atomic artillery shells, and atomic guided
missiles, and rocket flight far faster than the
speed of sound? And what about the revolution
implicit in nuclear- powered submarines and
nuclear- powered planes? And what about the
hydrogen thing and learned predictions that
within few decades man will grab hold Of the
suns energy and make it work miracles for him?
But this is only part of the picture In what
has all the earmarks of startling coincidence.
Space Cadet" has made its bow in The Star at
q time when President Truman and members
of Congress, with awe in their voices, have re-
vealed that the United States is producing fan
tastic" new non-atomic weapons" devastating y
"amazing" beyond imagination" "StupendouS'
in their implications, instruments by which man
now conquers the atmosphere itself" Is this
castro" speaking? No; it is real, live, 1eSh-and-
blood people like Senator O'Mahoney who have
said these cryptic but emphatic things to us tax
paying "earthworms." What can such talk
mean? Is it possible that we are translating into
reality the Earth Satellite Vehicle Program that
the Defense Department guardedly referred to
three years ago? Are we going to have space
stations" that will dangle hundreds of miles
above our globe as celestial military bases? In
Short are we entering an age OF interplanetary
strategy and balance of power?
The Star, of course, does not know the an
Swers to such questions. But it will not be
surprised if one of these days some Of the
fantasy of space Cadet" suddenly becomes the
real-life, subject of big black headlines on the
front page. This lurid feeling is all tf1stronger