It is always interesting to see how people imagined the future in certain ages, even so we have the separate trend 'retro futurism' for our viewing pleasure. A few weeks ago I purchased an amazing Hungarian dia film set (of two parts), which was created back in 1960, just one year before Gagarin's flight and one year after the Luna 1 launch, and it contains pure original retro-futuristic stuff.


The title is: 'Voyage To The Moon In 2111'. The story is quite simple, in fact there is no story, just a very direct and propagandistic sci-fi sketch about a young Hungarian student, Judit, who wins a trip to the Moon. In the first step the girl flies to a huge spaceport on aboard a nuclear jet airliner, and shortly after arriving she heads to the Tsiolkovsky orbital outpost, one of the three space stations named after the fathers of rocketry, by a three stage rocket.

In the second part, the next day she goes to the Moon from the space station by another spacecraft (MX 2 Moon Rocket). She takes a walk on the surface of the Moon with her astronaut attendant, visits the memorial of the first men on the Moon and gets sweaty a little. The next day his astronaut attendant (Mark) rides his nuclear powered rocket and captures the Soviets' Luna 1 spacecraft, the first artificial planet in the solar system in order to bring back to Earth, to a museum. Judit returns back to Earth with the Luna 1 and gives a presentation to her classmates in the Natural Science Museum Of The United States Of Earth about her adventures and the Glorious Soviet Space Program.


Not so thrilly, isn't it? But the illustrations, painted by the awesome Sandor Lengyel (1930 - 1988), Hungarian painter, graphic designer, are worth scrolling down the two rolls to the end. (I might say Sandor Lengyel was the Hungarian Arthur Radebaugh and you should agree me). So here comes the full Hungarian Moon Odyssey, enjoy the cool cars, airplanes, rockets and space stations that we have less then hundred years to create.







Utazás A Holdba 2111-ben. Írta: Gauser Károly, rajzolta: Lengyel Sándor, szerkesztette: Szilágyi Ferenc. Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, Budapest, 1960.