In 1961 Arthur C. Clarke published 'A Fall of Moondust' about the plight of the dustship Selene trapped under the Moon's surface. On page 8 he wrote "Selene's official designation was a Dust-Cruiser...she was called 'ship', 'boat' or 'moon-bus' according to taste". I guess this must be the first use of the term 'Moon Bus' [although Selene is more like Century 21's 'Moon Ship' {cf. cover art above} than the Moon Bus we know and love]. As previously covered on the blog the classic Moon Bus concept we are familiar with first appeared in 1963 and it's first 'Anderson' appearance was 1966 in Lady Penelope comic. But neither of these were refered to as a Moon Bus. It would be in the 1967 Summer of Sword before the classic shape was linked to the name Moon Bus in the SWORD strip in SOLO comic August 12th, a good six years after Clarke coined the term [see pictures below].
1967
Despite SWORD's Moon Bus appearing as a beautiful toy in 1967 [and later the Spacex Mobile HQ] I would have to admit that the term was really put on the sci-fi map, once again by Arthur C.Clarke, in his 2001- A Space Odyssey published in 1968 and in the 1969 Stanley Kubrick film [which has links to SWORD in more ways than one], which gave us probably the most famous of all plastic Moon buses, the Aurora Model Kit. With all this in mind I think it's fair to say that Arthur C.Clarke is indeed the inventor of the Moon Bus.
6 comments:
Jeepers. Please don't make Mr Clarke's head any bigger than it already is ^_^
You must be right about the provenance of the moon bus. However, my favorite lunar vehicle remains the Moon Hopper from Captain Scarlet. It's the one vehicle onscreen that best demonstrates how Moon transportation doesn't need to look or move like terrestrial transport.
Sir Arthur died a couple of years ago.
Sean
Toad, he de man!
Rab, I will look into the Moon Hopper.
Sean, yes, a tragic loss. I only recently found out that he hailed from Minehead, a place I spent many a happy summer holiday as a nipper at Butlins in the sunny 1960's.
The moon hopper is basically the same thing that appeared in UFO, in a slightly earlier form. I always hated that spooky noise that accompanied it!
I loved the UFO moon hoppers and they made "Survival" one of my favourite episodes.
Know what you mean about the spooky sound when they were onscreen but I quite liked it!
Post a Comment