Space Adventures by Alfred Coppel

In this episode, we’re diving into the psychological and atmospheric worlds of Alfred Coppel, a master of mid-century speculative fiction. 

First, we travel to the lunar surface in 'First Man on the Moon', originally published in a 1950 issue of Planet Stories. But this isn't a story of triumphant exploration; it is a dark, gripping look at an obsession so blinding that it leads to murder. 

Then, we shift our gaze to 'Touch the Sky', a 1955 tale of existential dread and anticipation that follows pilot Pete Moore on the final night before his own historic moonshot mission.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Narrated Archives, the podcast where we dust off the forgotten blueprints of yesterday's tomorrow from the public domain. I'm your host, Sally Barron, and today we're stepping into a time machine set for the early 1950s, an era when the moon was still a mystery and space travel was a dream captured on cheap pulp paper. During the 1950s, the American newsstand was a colorful battlefield of speculative fiction. The post-World War II boom, combined with early Cold War anxieties and real-world advancements in rocketry, sparked an insatiable public appetite for space travel stories. The decade marked a major shift from the oversized, gaudy pulp magazines printed on cheap wood pulp to smaller, more sophisticated digest formats. Magazines like Planet Stories specialized in high adventure space opera, while newer titles like Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction pushed the genre toward sociological realism, psychological depth, and literary quality. These magazines did not just entertain, they featured speculative science columns by experts like Willie Lay. They primed the public imagination for the actual space race that would kick off later in the decade. In this episode, we're diving into the psychological and atmospheric worlds of Alfred Koppel, a master of mid-century speculative fiction. First, we travel to the lunar surface in First Man on the Moon, originally published in a 1950 issue of Planet Stories. But this isn't a story of triumphant exploration. It is a dark, gripping look at an obsession so blinding that it leads to murder. Then we shift our gaze to Touch the Sky, a 1955 tale of existential dread and anticipation that follows pilot Pete Moore on the final night before his own historic moonshot mission. Alfredo Jose De Arana Marini Coppel, born in 1921, was an American author who stood out as one of the most prolific and emotionally grounded voices of the mid-century science fiction boom. Born in Oakland, California, Coppel served as a United States Army Air Force's fighter pilot during World War II. His real-world experience navigating the skies deeply influenced the technical realism and psychological tension found in his aviation and spaceflight stories. After his discharge, he launched a full-time writing career, publishing heavily across the 1950s and 1960s. He frequently utilized pseudonyms such as Robert Cham Gillam and A. C. Merrin to write across multiple genres, including action thrillers and post-apocalyptic fiction. Usually, narrated archives lives in the eras that are at least a hundred years in the past. However, I keep finding short stories more recently published in magazines. And per Project Gutenberg, these stories have been extensively researched and did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on these publications were renewed. So, turn down the lights, open your mind, and let's open the pages of the Narrated Archive. The First Man on the Moon. Note. This audio was produced from Planet Stories spring 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. The first man on the moon. The ship lay at a crazy angle on the stark whiteness of the pumice plane. The rocket nozzles were a fused lump of slag. The fire darkened hull, crumpled and warped by the impact of landing. And there was silence. Complete and utter silence. Thurman realized this. At first, the thought had brought panic. But as the scope of his achievement dawned on him, the fear retreated. Bruised, giddy, half crazed. The certainty of death held no terrors. Not yet. And it was worth it, with fame, with immortality, with glory, in return, for the last few years of a blighted, embittered, overshadowed life. Yes, it was well worth it. And except for the crash landing, and the certainty of no return, it had all come to pass just as he had planned it for so long. On his knees he caressed the gritty soil. He lifted his arms toward the day star flaming in the day-night of space, and knew completion. Tears streaked his stubbled face, and strange noises came from his slack mouth. The ecstasy of success was almost unbearable. For this, he had labored a lifetime. For this, he had murdered a friend. Across the abyss, the whole world waited for word. The transmitter in the rocket had survived the crash, that the word would come, thought Thurmond, when he was ready to send it. And sending it, he would place the official seal of immortality on his brow, that the book would close. But wonderfully, satisfyingly. There would be no other to seal his rightful glory. Only Wayne could have done that. And Wayne was dead. He laughed weirdly in his helmet. So simply done. The Sea of Serenity stretched out before him in weird magnificence. In the far distance, a mountain range rose precipitously from the wilderness of pumice to hump its spiny backbone at the brilliant stars. A limbo of black shadows and stark white talus slopes. Moonscape. Thurman stumbled to his feet and fought the wave of nausea that surged over him as his equilibrium teetered from the low gravity. Then, in an instant, his discomfort was forgotten. Standing on the brink of the cosmos, his ego drank of grandeur. All the splendor of creation lay before him like a jeweled carpet. All his. All for John Thurmond. Genius, explorer, murderer. For John Thurmond was the first man on the moon. With an effort he dragged his eyes from the sky. Slowly his reasoning was returning. There was work to do, but Wayne must be hidden. The next to come must never know. And it should be done quickly. Time would fly, and in the last hours the fear would return. He knew that. Right now his triumph sustained him. There was the broadcast to look forward to. A billion people waited for his words. It was a sop to his ego, but it could not make him forget that this was costing him his life. On occasion, Thurman could be realistic, and he knew that, when there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for the end, he would be afraid, terribly, hideously afraid, and alone. It was the only flaw in his plan for immortality. Yet his life had been a barren thing, devoid of love or any real success. It was little enough to trade, and this was his only chance for lasting fame. He could not let it go. The plan was working, almost of its own inertia. He was alone, he was on the moon, where no man had ever been before him, not even Wayne. Wayne who designed the rocket and guided it. Wayne who had stolen every chance Thurman ever had for recognition. Well, Wayne was dead now. He had never put a living foot on the soil of the moon. Only Thurman had done that. And it was his passport to eternal glory. No one, no one could take that away from him. Weighed in the loaded balance of his mind, it more than compensated for dying alone and on an alien world. In fact, even the dying would add to the legends, and Thurman would live forever, the first man on the moon. He ran his tongue over his dry lips and stooped to pick up the thing at his feet. Wayne's corpse was still bloated from the internal pressure, and the naked flesh was drying fast to a parchment-like consistency. Moisture was still seeping in awful little globules from the shattered skull where Thurman's unseen blow had landed. Thurman found himself shuddering. The murder had been the hardest part. But now it was done, and all that remained was to give his dead companion a secret resting place somewhere in the vast expanse of pumice that lay out there under the blistering sun. Thurman's unsteady mind swerved from high elation to sadness. Poor Wayne. He felt he could afford to be generous now. So many years of work so soon to be forgotten. Just one quick blow, and poor, poor Wayne slipped into the limbo of the earth's forgotten. Under the light gravity, he carried the naked grisly bundle easily, and as he walked out into the Mare Tranquilitatis, his spirits rose again. How wonderful it was to be certain that no one could steal his triumph, not even Wayne. Particularly not Wayne. He looked down at the thing in his arms and chuckled. The sound was uncanny with the pyrex bubble of his helmet. After what seemed a long time, Thurman stopped and set down his burden. With his pack spade, he set to work digging a trench in the pumice. As he dug, he found himself crooning happily to the corpse. His voice was high pitched and hysterical, but of course he did not notice it. There, there, Wayne, old friend. See? I'm making a grave for you, the very first grave, Wayne, and you shall have it, old friend. Yours the grave and mine the glory. He laughed hilariously at the thought. I'll say you didn't make it alive. You didn't, did you? But I made it. Wayne, me. Alone, all alone, with no help from you. D'ye hear? Thurman chattered on, the sound of his crazed voice dying with the confines of his helmet. While all around him the eternal silence of the Sea of Serenity continued unbroken. The stars shone steadily in the airless sky, and the sun flamed in impotent splendor, furiously silent. At last the pit was done, and Thurman lowered the nude corpse into the shadows. Goodbye, Wayne. You see, you shouldn't have come here with me. You shouldn't have tried to steal my success. That was the wrong thing. But you're sorry now, aren't you, old friend? Don't feel too badly, Wayne. I'll join you soon. Goodbye, Wayne. Goodbye. Laborously he shoveled pumice into the pit and tamped it down with his leaded boots. Then he smoothed the surface of the dig until it was as smooth as the rest of the surrounding plane. Satisfied, he turned his back on the grave and started for the rocket. He sang on the way back, so happy was he to have done with his ghastly companion. Recklessly prodigal of his oxygen supply, he ran toward the open valve of the ship. Breath coming hard, he stumbled into the rocket and across the buckled deck plates to the radar phone. The tiny atomic batteries hummed as he removed the cadmium dampers. Power flickered the needles of the main set. Thurman adjusted the selector to relay and tuned in his suit radio. Then he returned to sit in the open valve and call the monitoring station. He smiled with satisfaction as the response cut through the blanket of hissing solar static. Hello. Hello, ES1. This is White Sands. My lord, we've given you what for lost. Where are you? Thurman took a steadier grip on his dancing mind and replied, Listen carefully. Carefully, you understand. This is John Thurman. I am on the western edge of the Sea of Serenity on the Moon. Wayne is dead. He didn't make it. Died during acceleration, and I had to dispose of his body in space. Did you get that? I'm alone here. The ship crashed on landing. I can't get back, but it's worth it. I haven't much time left. But I want everyone to know that I made it. It'll be easier now for others. After I've pointed the way. I'm the first. And it's worth it. Did you get that? There was a long silence. Finally, the radar man spoke respectfully. Yes, Thurman, we got that. Your transmission is being shunted into the commercial bands. Can you tell us what you see up there? And and Thurman, we all want you to know that our prayers are with you. Tears were flowing on Earth now. Thurman knew. Tears for a martyr to science doomed to death alone on an alien world. He smiled thinly. Even his tiny taste of deference and respect was heady wine to his frustrated psyche. Thurman stepped through the valve and lowered himself to the plane. His heart was pounding triumphantly. Carefully, painstakingly, he began to describe his surroundings, interspersing his words with scientific data. He played the hero well. There was no hysteria recognizable in his voice, and if it trembled slightly, there was reason enough for that. He rounded the bulge of the rocket's nose and looked for the first time at the western edge of the Marais. In the near distance, an irregularly shaped outcropping of rock caught his eye. Transmitting as he went, he made his way toward it. He drew nearer, and as he did, fear began to stir within him. His steps faltered, but some awful power drew him on. His voice became a shrill rasp in his ears, and on Earth a billion people gasped with horror. Wayne! Thurman shouted the name in fear and threw his arms over his face, but the thing remained. It was real. Wayne! No! It can't be! No! But the figure did not move. The vast colossus loomed stark white and naked in the brilliant sunlight. Legs apart, arms folded on its breast, it stared with brooding eyes at the vast emptiness of the lunar plane. Thurman howled with terror and fury. Damn you! Damn you! Why don't you answer me? I killed you once, I'll kill you again. I'm the first one here. Do you hear me? I'll kill you again. He lowered his head and charged. The last thing he remembered was the soundless tinkle of his shattering helmet, and the terrible pain as his skull cracked under the suddenly shifting pressures. And, strangely enough, the story of the race's first conquest of space is the story of one man, Sargon, the Lumerian immortal who led his people to the moon in the misty past of Earth's youth. The Lumerians are gone now, but on the westernmost edge of the Sea of Serenity, there stands a statue of Sargon. It stands in magnificent isolation, a monument to the first man on the moon. Touch the sky. The sign said, Ride the rocket twice around the universe for twenty five cents. Which was cheap enough, Pete Moore thought. Cheap enough at twice the fare. Glory giggled and pulled at his arm. Let's ride, Pete. Let's see what you're in for. He smiled down at her thinly, because it wasn't really anything for her to giggle about, but that was glory for you. She was young enough, gay enough, to be able to make a joke of it, and that was good, and he shouldn't spoil it. Not many other wives would feel like that. Not many other wives would want to spend his last night home on the midway, for that matter. But then again, that was glory. He listened to the tiny carousel music and the babble of the crowd, the laughter and the mingled drone of barkers. He smelled the tang of roasting popcorn, and the hot doggy stink of the lunch counters. He looked at the Ferris wheel and the crazy swoop of lights that was the scenic railway, and the people crowding along the boardwalk with cupy dolls and spun sugar candy cones in their hands. Question, his mind demanded, is this reality? Answer Of course, what else? I've been too long away from cities, he thought. Too many silent nights in the desert, too many high flights in cold blue air. Too long away from glory? He felt guilty and depressed at the thought. It wasn't the way for Amanda feel, not before the great adventure. Still, he couldn't avoid an almost homesick longing for the deep darkness of the desert, and the silver ship waiting there. Soon, he thought. Three days. Three days and a few hours. He felt a tug on his arm. Pete? Glory was smiling up at him, half aggrieved, half loving. He looked again at the garishly painted sign. Ride the rocket. Let's ride it, Pete, Glory said. Let's there was something in her smile that touched him. Pride? That and love and youth. To her, he was the man. For her and for all the world, the one who was going to reach out beyond the far horizon and touch the sky and bring back a pot of gold for everyone. She thinks no one else could do it, he told himself. That's love. There were a dozen qualified men, and yet the moonshot was his Ride the Rocket. All right, baby. As he paid their fare for the rocket ride, Pete found himself looking at the girl in the booth. Tired eyes and stringy hennaed hair. No dreams there. He had an impulse to tell her that soon he'd really be riding the rocket, and that from then on, things would be different. New frontiers, new dreams for everybody, up and up. The girl's eyes met his, and it was Pete who looked away. You don't talk frontiers to pale, worn faces, and eyes bleached of color by tinny music and stinks and men. They walked up a wooden ramp to where a little metal bullet on rails waited. The paint, once bright, was all scuffy. A sour faced attendant in greyish coveralls. Stood by a larger lever. Fasten your seatbelts, Mac. We're off to the sky, Glory said. Somewhere, old machinery whizzed. The little bullet began to move along the rails toward a hinge trap door in a wall painted to look like clouds. Hold my hand, Pete, Glory said breathlessly. Glory, glory, he thought. Young and simple and in love with life, any kind of life, real or unreal. Glory with a bubbling laughter, a zest, a faith, maybe it was really for her that he was taking the big flight. If only he could bring back the pot of gold. If only he could tell weary men that the sky was all his. He thought of the strained, unhappy faces in the streets, the fear filled eyes. If he could return and say to them, Here's your new frontier. Yes, by God it was worth the work and the risk. Glory was right. It was something to be proud of. I'm going to the moon. Me, Pete Moore, to the moon. There it is, Pete. They had bumped through the painted door into a musky semi darkness. The walls were perforated with holes for stars, and from somewhere below a huge yellowish moon was rising. Off a short way to the right was a glowing paper mache globe, painted with broad bands slightly askew, and behind that was another with rings. A loudspeaker whistled tinly, and overhead on wire runners, an electric globe crossed the dim chamber, pieces of yellow and white cray paper fluttering freely behind. Oh, Pete! A comet. Sure enough, Glory, he said. The rumbling little bullets skirted the walls and Pete could see the electric lights behind the holes. Stars, he thought sardonically. Close enough to touch. Lucky us. There's Mars, Pete, Glory said, squeezing his hand. I'm getting disenchanted, he thought. A red ball, all painted with canals and white polar caps far too big. They should have had a technical advisor on this project, he thought. Paging Palomar. The bullet began its second circuit in the paper mache universe, and the moon was high now, projected on the wall by some kind of lantern slide lamp. There was a face on the moon. It began thin, just a tiny bead of fear way down inside his belly. But it grew. He felt suffocated, claustrophobic, oppressed by fakery and cheapness. Glory was laughing with delight. Oh, it's wonderful. Shut up, Pete thought savagely. Shut up, shut up. With an effort, he got hold of himself. I've been working too hard. I'm jittery thinking about the moonshot and all this seedy burlesque just irritates me. There's nothing to get heated up about. Calm down. But why am I suddenly afraid? He looked again at the ridiculous moon, with its smirking face. He saw that plaster had fallen from the walls in places, peeling away, leaving the bare hexagons of wire and laths. My God, he thought, a chicken wire sky. He thought again of the girl in the ticket booth, and of the tired, frightened people, all laughing too much and shoving and running outside. The bullets started down at last, toward the hinged door. On this side it was painted to look like Earth, with a distorted map of North America, all wrong somehow. Pete felt ill. It was as though someone were making ill-tempered fun of the dreams and the tall silver ship waiting out on the desert, cheapening it, laughing nastily. The little bullet bumped through the seedy, scruffy earth and out into the night of the midway, out into the crowd sounds and music and hot doggy smells. It was fun, Pete, Glory said. He helped her out onto the rickety platform. He had the insane notion that the girl in the ticket booth and the lounging attendant were laughing at him. It sure was, honey, he said wearily, still feeling the illogical fear of he knew not what inside himself. Real fun. Glory looked up at him, eyes alight and almost feverishly joyful. I did what you are going to do. I touched the sky. New frontiers, new lands in the sky, new hope. It was quiet. The jet was still, and no sound was anywhere in the ship. Now a soft tick from the timer. A whisper from the questioning radar scope, and again the stillness. We've done it, Pete thought. We've really done it. The hard part is over. Ride the rocket. He remembered the pain of the takeoff and the absolute panic that had welled up in him when the irrevocability of his action came home. He remembered riding a tale of red fire up out of the hot desert air of New Mexico, into the still blue, and then the silence, and the almost unnerving thrill of the realization that the moonshot was going to succeed. The radio hissed at him with the voice of the desert base half around the world. Hello, Moonshot, this is Base. All's okay. Stage one landed in the Gulf. Stage two just reported floating off the Azores. Good show. Pete lifted himself from the acceleration couch and felt a moment of nausea and panic as he floated toward the ceiling of the tiny cell. Free flight. He steadied himself and checked the flow of the telemetered information binding the ship to the glowing curve far below. All okay. Except that Except that you're still afraid, he told himself. Not just the normal fear of falling afraid that the Sykes told you about. Afraid like before, in that silly damned carnival ride thing. Afraid of the dark? No, not quite that. More closed in, cheating feeling. Premonition? Nonsense. He clung to the radar scope, trembling, with every rushing mile upward, outward. His fear was growing. It wasn't right. It didn't make sense. But he felt as though he were rushing straight at a brick wall, head down, eyes closed. He lit the telescreens. The stars look funny. He thought uneasily. The timer ticked. The radar whispered, searching. Time passed, and his fear grew thicker, less reasonable. His fingers dug hard at the metal of the instrument panel as the night slipped by outside the hull. The ship's orbital ellipse, Kepler's contribution to the new frontier, was established. Pete thought something's wrong, very wrong. The stars look queer. The constellations in the telescreens were distorting, and there was something ahead of the ship, where there should be nothing but emptiness. It showed in the screen for just an instant and was lost. A ringed sphere. I must be dreaming, Pete thought. But then what is reality? That sphere was Saturn, and it was a hundred yards across. Reality? Insanity. I'd better check with base, Pete thought, and tell them I've gone off my rocker, that I'm suffering hallucinations. But he did nothing except cling shaking to the panel, watching the distorted stars in the screen. They were blurring now, streaks of light that seemed to be very close to the ship. And then came the moon. It came and went very quickly, pocked and scarred, and with only one face. And small, very small, and very close. Pete felt closed in, suffocated. The radar alarm was screaming at him that something was near, too near. He clamped down savagely on himself. There was an explanation somewhere, but he had to find it. He had to think. Item the stars. Distorted. Blurred. Item Saturn. A hundred yards across. Item. A tiny replica of the moon, like a pimple on the inside of an egg. Replica? No, the moon. The only moon. Reality. Hypothesis. Say that space is not as men imagined it. Say that it is an illusion without light years, without great suns, without huge planets. Say for the sake of argument, that it is a shell with holes in it, and light outside. The sun itself is an illusion of heat and power and say that this hollow shell is man's new frontier, a fraud, a toy for things outside. The alarm screamed at him. The ship was plunging toward the blurry light of the stars. With an icy hand on his heart, Pete Moore turned to look at the telescreen behind him. A misty blue ball swam in musky darkness. The oceans gleamed in the light of the sun, cloud masses whitened it. The wrinkled face of the land looked unreal. He began to laugh. Tears streaked his cheeks as he pounded his bloody fists against the instrument panel in timed the clanging of the alarm. The Earth! The Earth! It did rather look like Paper Mache. He touched the sky. Two men, two rockets, and two vastly different paths to the stars. Alfred Koppel's first man on the moon and Touch the Sky remind us that no matter how far technology takes us into the cosmos, we always bring our human flaws, our ghosts, and our obsessions along for the ride. These stories are vibrant artifacts from an era when the universe felt safely bound inside the pages of a 25-cent magazine. Thank you for listening to this edition of Narrated Archives. If you enjoyed this journey into Vintage Sci-Fi, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow travelers of the spacewaves. The story may have ended, but the archive is always open. We'll see you in the next chapter of the Narrated Archives. Thank you for listening.