Welcome to the Space General Corporation Moon Suit page

 

Allyn Hazard in the Mojave Desert

Recently I've decided to migrate all of the contents of Wildtoys.com to Blogger - this is to ensure that the content is always available, in defiance of paying hosting fees - hopefully Blogger will continue to be a free content publishing service.

I originally published the Moon Suit area of Wildtoys in June 2002 (my first images were hosted within the Major Matt Mason section in 1997 thus the publication dates) and expanded on it for a couple of years. I have new images and content that I'll be adding to this site as a definitive archive.

-- John

All images, captions and content are Copyright © 1997-2025 John Eaton unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton, by clicking here.

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962 Cover

More than likely, the cover of this issue of Life, which features the bell-like Moon Suit, was the inspiration to Mattel for the Major Matt Mason accessory. The cover story is "Man's Journey to the Moon" and some of the interior stories follow this theme. At some point I'll take new images of the cover and entire article and provide a transcript.

Inside, another photo of the suit with the caption "Moon Suit. Testing a moon suit mock-up, Inventor Allyn Hazard stands in a lava crater on the Mojave Desert. Suit carries own oxygen, food." The accompanying article has "As for protecting the men themselves, at least one company - California's Space-General - has already built and is trying out a very early model moon suit.

Life Magazine, April 27, 1962 2-Page Image

It carries food, water, a radio, a tiny stove and air conditioning to insulate its occupant from the 300 degree fluctuations of lunar temperature. Its weight of 200 pounds, unwieldy on earth, should be no problem on the moon where things weigh six times less." Below the article are photos of various moon vehicles...one looks a little like the Major Matt Mason Space Bubble. 

Further on there's this spread of proposed lunar vehicles including one (in bold - transcript below) by the Space General Corporation.

A Model Menagerie of Moon Vehicles (image by Paul Vreede)

 Transcript:

A Model Menagerie of Moon Vehicles

Eight bizarre vehicles, models built by U.S. companies to test various concepts of getting about on the moon, sit on a simulated bit of lunar landscape. The models, most of which actually work, are (front row, left to right) an RCA six-legged walker carrying a drill in its red head for taking geological samples; a General Motors screwlike vehicle designed to worm its way through lunar dust; another RCA walker with rubber-covered leg joints, a radio antenna on its head. In the second row are a Bendix vehicle which unfolds from a rocket, then crawls about on sagging and flexible yellow wheels; a GM vehicle with six grapefruitlike wheels designed for traveling in very soft dust. In the back row are an RCA balloon vehicle, powered by a disk of solar-charged batteries on top (the actual one could stand 100 feet high and roll gently around on its soft plastic body); another variety of RCA walker, this one four-legged; an elaborate Space-General walker with a roof of solar batteries, three pairs of legs and a TV camera and mechanical hand on its outstretched mechanical arms.
(image by Paul Vreede from his great Triang/SpaceX site.

All images, captions and content are Copyright © 1997-2023 John Eaton unless otherwise stated. If there are any comments or objections, please contact John Eaton, by clicking here.