The first mission to the Moon is underway, as a brave crew of four men and one woman—led by pilot Col. Floyd Graham (Lloyd Bridges) and physicist Dr. Karl Eckstrom (John Emery) blast off in the pioneering vessel. But a catastrophic fuel miscalculation and a meteor shower sends their ship careening out of control. With the Moon no longer an option, they are forced to make an emergency landing on the mysterious red planet, Mars.
There, they don’t find life, but chilling evidence of its demise: the ghostly ruins of a once-great civilization, wiped out by atomic war. The few descendants who remain have regressed into a primitive, cave-dwelling state, and they are hostile to the new visitors. The crew’s desperate attempt to return home with a warning for humanity makes Rocketship X-M a classic and cautionary tale of the atomic age.
