Those who came of age during the 1970's will remember how strongly "Moon Fever" burned in some people. After John F. Kennedy made his ambitious commitment to putting a man on the Moon, NASA came up with a system to send two men to the lunar surface 8 years later.

"Stowaway to the Moon," a made-for-TV movie, is geared to the fantasies of anyone who desperately wanted to travel with the astronauts. Child actor Michael Link plays Eli Mackernutt, Jr., a bright kid that everyone simply calls E.J. Living in Florida, E.J. naturally develops a love for the space program, learning everything he can about the Moon.

E.J. then figures out a way to hitch a ride on the next Apollo mission. Disguising himself as a maintenance worker, young E.J. sneaks into Camelot, the Command Module, and hides out in one of the waste disposal units. At launch time, Mission Control detects E.J.'s extra weight, but the crew thinks it is just water that seeped in the spaceship and turned into ice.

When Ben Pelham (Jim McMullan), the baseball cap-wearing Command Module Pilot, gets violently sick in space, E.J. steps in and saves his life with a vacuum cleaner. The unofficial "fourth astronaut" then finds Little Dipper, the Lunar Module, when it goes off course. Obviously, it's handy to have a kid around on a Moon mission.

Based on the book by William R. Shelton, "Stowaway to the Moon" is a fun little movie that is highly unbelievable, but quite entertaining nonetheless. E.J. makes it through NASA's front gate and past all the security cameras with surprising ease. It's also hard to believe that a pre-teen could survive the incredible G-Forces that build up during a Moon launch, even if he is surrounded by blue garbage bags.

Lloyd Bridges is ultra-cool though as Charlie Englehardt, the flight controller, he is ready to abort the mission after the astronauts find their young stowaway. Veteran actor John Carradine and real-life astronaut Charles "Pete" Conrad also have small roles in this Made-For-TV adventure. "Stowaway to the Moon" definitely is worth a look when you come across it on television.

On the long-running outdoor series "*M*A*S*H*," Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy was arguably the most courageous and adventurous character in the whole show. As played by actor William Christopher, Father Mulcahy was the Army Chaplain for the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, providing spiritual guidance to the patients, doctors and support staff. That didn't mean, however, that he couldn't kick butt when he needed to.

Because he was amateur boxer in his civilian life, the pressures of working with broken bodies and young, dying soldiers sometimes made Father Mulcahy want to take a swing at someone. In fact, during one episode, after a wounded soldier hits him squarely on the jaw, the Chaplain reacts instinctively, flattening his attacker with one punch.

At other times, Father Mulcahy is called upon to perform an emergency tracheotomy in an area where no doctors are available. When supplies run low, he often negotiates with black market traders, attempting to get boxes of penicillin in exchange for booze, chocolate and other hard-to-get items. Father Mulcahy even lends a hand in the operating room, but he does have to perform the Last Rites after a soldier dies on the table.

Father Mulcahy's greatest act of bravery occurs in the episode entitled "An Eye for a Tooth." While his friends at the 4077th play practical jokes on each other, the Chaplain fights off the frustration of being passed over for promotion yet again. Despite his anger, when a helicopter pilot has to go retrieve a wounded soldier, Father Mulcahy volunteers to act as a human counterweight on the trip. This means he has to lie on a stretcher on the struts of the helicopter to keep the ship balanced in the air. Mulcahy survives the flight, but his lunch ends up in the latrine.

Originally portrayed as a gentle character, this two-fisted priest shows time and again that he has the right stuff. Father Mulcahy never has a shortage of kind words or bravery during his years in Korea, and that easily makes him the toughest character on "M*A*S*H."

Resources:
http://aftermash.blogspot.com/2009/09/episode-157-eye-for-tooth.html

Though he passed away at the age of 19, John Gillespie Magee, Jr. left the world an enduring legacy in "High Flight," a poem that the combat fighter reportedly composed while in the air. A mid-air collision took Magee's life in 1941, but his poem continues to inspire us to, in his words, "slip the surly bonds of Earth."

To honor Magee's spirit, slip on a flight jacket and power up your iPod with some of these high-flying hits:

"Space Oddity" (Written and Performed by David Bowie)
As "Moon Fever" gripped the world in the late 1960's, David Bowie composed this tune about Major Tom, an astronaut struggling with both the loneliness and beauty of outer space. At one point in the song, he says he's "just sitting in my tin can." Fourteen years later, Peter Schilling composed a follow-up called "Major Tom (Coming Home)" that became a major hit.

"Up, Up and Away" (Recorded by the 5th Dimension)
Jimmy Webb wrote this enduring pop tune about hot-air ballooning more than 40 years ago, but it still inspires thoughts of gently soaring through the air. The 5th Dimension recorded Webb's song, making it a Top 40 hit.

"Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" (Performed by the Royal Guardsmen)
Inspired by the most famous beagle on the planet, the Royal Guardsmen recorded this in honor of Charlie Brown's dog. In Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip, Snoopy often imagined he was a World War I Flying Ace, doing aerial battle against Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, the German flier better known as "The Red Baron." The Royal Guardsmen also produced two related songs, "Snoopy's Christmas" and "The Return of the Red Baron."

"Brother Up in Heaven" (Released by Alan Parsons)
Dedicated to the memory of Erik Mounsey, "Brother Up in Heaven" was one of the most memorable songs from "On Air," a solo release from Alan Parsons. Mounsey, the cousin of guitarist Ian Bairnson, was serving as a helicopter pilot when he was killed in the skies above Iraq in 1994.

Resources:
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1349
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2059

A lot of people call The Naturist (Gavin McInnes) an outdoor expert. We completely agree...he is an expert at what not to do while outdoors. Fortunately, he has one thing going for him, we equipped him in the new Teva® Riva. Thanks to features like an aggressive lug design and a waterproof and breathable membrane, Gavin can be sure that even when everything goes wrong, his feet will still be comfortable and protected by the Riva. To find out more about The Naturist and the Riva, check out: www.zappos.com/teva.

The 1970's were both a good and a bad time to become an invisible man on television. In 1975, David McCallum, who played Russian-born Illya Kuryakin on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." returned to network television as "The Invisible Man." McCallum played Dr. Daniel Westin, who invented a way to temporarily turn animals, people and objects invisible.

As is the case on any good sci-fi show, the invisibility device doesn't work quite right and Dr. Westin becomes permanently transparent the second time that he makes himself invisible. A plastic surgeon then creates a realistic face mask and fleshy gloves for him to wear to hide his condition from the world. For the duration of this short-lived series, Dr. Westin had some interesting adventures outside the lab thanks to his invisibility. In one show, he even gets a bad sunburn, but when his wife unbuttons his shirt, she pokes his transparent skin and comments that "It's not even pink."

Months after the cancellation of "The Invisible Man," the pilot episode of a new series called "The Gemini Man" appeared on the same network. Ben Murphy played Sam Casey, a secret agent who was caught in an underwater explosion while skin diving. The radiation from the explosion turned him permanently invisible, a condition that messed up his DNA and threatened his life.

Some bright scientists at a government organization called INTERSECT did, however, find a way to stabilize his condition. For the rest of his life, Sam had to wear a special wristwatch that kept him visible, but, for 15 minutes each day, he could shut off the watch and turn transparent. An invisible secret agent is a valuable commodity, and "Surfboard Sam," as his boss liked to call him, used his 15 minutes as best his could. Sometimes, however, he had to risk his life by exceeding the time limit, which could give him one heck of a headache.

"The Gemini Man" didn't even last as long as "Invisible Man," but if you can catch their rare appearances on retro television stations, they are interesting examples of 1970's adventure shows.