Rocketship X-M
1950 film by Kurt Neumann
Rocketship X-M (also known as Expedition Moon and originally Rocketship Expedition Moon) is a 1950 American black-and-white science-fiction film from Lippert Pictures, the first outer-space adventure of the post-World War II era. The film was produced and directed by Kurt Neumann and stars Lloyd Bridges, Osa Massen, John Emery, Noah Beery Jr., Hugh O'Brian and Morris Ankrum.
Rocketship X-M tells the story of a Moon expedition gone awry. Through a series of unforeseen events, the expedition's crew find themselves on Mars. They discover the remnants of a Martian civilization destroyed long ago by atomic war and now reverted to barbarism.
Plot
Four men and a woman blast into outer space from the White Sands Proving Ground aboard the RX-M (Rocketship Expedition-Moon) on humanity's first expedition to the Moon. Halfway there, after surviving their jettisoned and runaway first stage and a meteoroid storm, their engines suddenly quit. Recalculating fuel ratios and swapping around their multiple, different fuels corrects the problem, supposedly allowing continuing to the Moon. When the engines are reignited, the RX-M careens out of control on a rapid heading beyond the Moon. The increased acceleration causes the crew to lose consciousness.
“Rocketship X-M” enters the record as 1950 film by Kurt Neumann. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rocketship, film and Kurt can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Rocketship X-M” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Rocketship, film and Kurt provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1757751. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Rocketship X-M”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Rocketship X-M primary sources, Rocketship X-M archive and Rocketship research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Rocketship X-M”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Rocketship X-M” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.