Q:Build a movie plot around this: What position is Merritt being promoted to? General
A:
Mankind has achieved space flight capability and built "The Wheel" space station in orbit 1,075 miles above Earth. It is commanded by its designer, Colonel Samuel T. Merritt (Walter Brooke). His son, Captain Barney (Eric Fleming), having been aboard for a year, wants to return to Earth.A giant spaceship has been built in a nearby orbit, and an Earth inspector arrives aboard the station with new orders: Merritt is being promoted to general and will command the new spaceship, now being sent to Mars instead of the Moon. As General Merritt considers his crew of three enlisted men and one officer, his close friend, Sgt. Mahoney (Mickey Shaughnessy) volunteers. The general turns him down for being 20 years too old. Hearing that Mars is the new destination, Barney Merritt volunteers to be the second officer.Right after the crew watch a TV broadcast from their family and friends, the mission blasts off for the Red Planet. The general's undiagnosed and growing space fatigue is beginning to seriously affect his judgement: Reading his Bible frequently, he has doubts about the righteousness of the mission. After launch, Sgt. Mahoney is discovered to be a stowaway, having hidden in a crew spacesuit. Their piloting radar antenna later fails, and two crew go outside to make repairs. They manage to get it working just as their monitors show a glowing planetoid, 20 times larger than their spaceship, coming at them from astern. The general fires the engines, barely managing to avoid a collision. But the planetoid's fast-orbiting debris punctures Sgt. Fodor (Ross Martin)'s spacesuit, killing him instantly. After a religious service in space, Fodor's body is cast adrift into the void.Eight months later, the general is becoming increasingly mentally unbalanced, focusing on Sgt. Fodor's loss as "God's judgement". On the Mars landing approach, he attempts to crash their spaceship, now convinced the mission violates the laws of God. Barney wrests control away from his father, landing the large flying wing glider-rocket safely....