Earth Satellite Game: Fight your way to the Moon in a 3-stage rocket (1956)

 

Sometimes the images just grab you and you don't care about the source.  One such example is the cover to the 1956 board game "Earth Satellite: Fight your way to the Moon in a 3-stage rocket."

It is an expensive game to find complete but I was lucky enough to find a broken one which had many of these cool images intact.  Since I never planned to play the game, these evocative fragments are cool decorations. The game pieces are really cool, with their approach to what might happen during a space mission.

One of the things that I didn't know about the game was that the game pieces are 3-stage "Bonestell" rockets. As part of the game you get to build your game piece.

I also love the board. Although tough to show completely it gives a wonderful sense of how you have to climb to get to the Moon.

Finally I like this game board spinner. I am tempted to have it made into a T-shirt because it is such a perfect 1956 image of how children dreamed of spaceflight even while many adults did not have a clue what was coming in a year or so.