Salvage (1979) TV Movie

[MattMason]

“I want to build a spaceship, go to the moon, salvage all the junk that's up there, bring it back and sell it.”

Once upon a time, a junkman had a dream.

Harry Broderick (Andy Griffith), owner of a salvage yard, had always been fascinated about spaceflight, but particularly, the moon. A decade or so after the Apollo lunar missions, Harry decides to make his dreams come true in a highly unorthodox and creative fashion.

The TV movie, “Salvage,” aired on January 20, 1979. The film begins with Harry successfully bidding for a vintage bi-plane and then reselling it in pieces for more than twice that he paid for it. He’s using every penny he has to purchase up surplus military components, specifically, aerospace surplus, such as 3 XLR81-BA-7 (Agena) engines.

Harry approaches two other former aerospace workers. One is a former astronaut turned used-car salesman, Skip Carmichael, who once proposed a highly unusual way to send a spacecraft to the moon and back within 2 days. The problem with his idea was that such a vehicle would require a fuel with such a high impulse and volatility that NASA would never consider the idea as viable, much less safe. Skip knows the person who can make that fuel, and that is Melanie Slozar, former fuel expert now turned special effects technician for feature films. Both Skip and Melanie, initially pessimistic and dubious of Harry’s sincerity, are swayed over by the junkman’s conviction. With neither astronaut or fuel expert having anything better to do, they join Harry and begin their designs.

The trick, Harry realizes, is keeping the testing and certainly the launch a secret until the last minute, knowing that the government might not take a liking to the idea of what they’d consider a manned guided missile filled with highly explosive fuels launching from a suburb in California. Harry’s ex-wife and partner of the junkyard, Lorene, helps coordinate the yard’s workman (many of whom had not-so-coincidentally worked in the space program) to both assemble and test the rocket components while simultaneously performing work that caused a ton of noise or provided scaffolding as cover for static engine tests and vehicle assembly. Vertical, not horizontal assembly as SpaceX does. (I mention this just so I can get the obligatory “SpaceX” reference in first).

The Vulture (a humorous contrasting name to LM-5 Eagle) takes shape. The center and only fuel tank is a surplus Texaco tanker truck tank. Atop it rests a cement mixer truck tank, not only sufficiently aerodynamic but also forming a strong habitable pressure vessel for the two-man crew. Three nacelles along the length of the fuel body hold the Agena engines while the top of the crew cabin rests 6 retrorockets used for deceleration during reentry. The Vulture stands on a tripod leg assembly, using tires, that double for liftoff and landing needs.

The notions of the special fuel and trajectory work well to suspend most space enthusiast viewer’s disbelief, given some bigger challenges introduced that Harry’s crew cannot simply surmount through mechanical ingenuity (or writer’s handwaving). The second biggest problem involved the Vulture’s guidance system: They didn’t have one. While Skip thinks he could fly the spacecraft manually, Mel balks at the idea, as does Harry, who turns to Mack, who worked with NASA and knows how the team can hack into a NASA guidance computer by an acoustical
modem.

Keep in mind that this film was set in 1978 or so. The “microcomputer” was just a curious novelty in Radio Shack stores, used mostly cassette-tapes as storage, had 1 to 10kbytes (0.01 to 0.1 MB) of RAM and no real communication except slow dial-up modems for those who could afford them, have computers that would support them, and who knew what few public privately-owned “bulletin board” computers or computer services were available for them to connect. The internet (as a public medium) did not yet exist. What people were employed by the film as scientific advisors is still a mystery (Wikipedia has an unverified citation that SF writer Isaac Asimov helped) but it was clear that this film employed people that knew enough of the strengths and limits of technology at the time to form a realistic, or at least plausible, science base.

(Continued...)

[MattMason]

(Continued...)

While using a guidance system by-phone and hacking into a government computer was risky enough, Mel’s challenge in getting the fuel mixture stable is monumental. She directs work on a complex coolant system to keep the “monohydrazine” below a certain temperature at all times. Else, the mixture simply explodes, destroying the vehicle and goodness knows what else is close by.

Soon, the Vulture is ready. Harry and Skip are the prime crew, but an FBI agent named Klinger, curious about the junkyard’s purchases, comes calling. Klinger’s instincts know that something is up. Problems with the Vulture’s fuel stability also creep in, forcing Harry, dejected and disappointed, to scrub himself from flying, letting Mel take his place to keep the fuel system stable. Mel’s pairing with Skip reignites an implied old romantic interest between the two, more volatile than the fuel Mel has (barely) stabilized.

With an FBI team coming the following day, Harry rushes his team to launch early in the morning, now or never. Lorene makes a quick call to local officials to announce the launch with a few minutes left in the countdown in hopes they wouldn’t shoot the Vulture out of the sky or cause undue alarm. One of Agent Klinger’s spies gets a full look at the Vulture as the junkmen unveil it, minutes from launch, and alerts Klinger to rush over.

Too late. The Vulture slowly lifts off from Jettison Scrap and Salvage. All looks good until a computer tech at NASA, unaware of the computer’s use, turns off the guidance computer for maintenance, causing the Vulture to pitch out of control. Skip barely holds manual control of the spacecraft long enough for Mack and Harry to call NASA to apologize and beg to get the guidance computer back online.

With the Vulture stable and on its way, Agent Klinger is fuming, but Harry is all smiles. Klinger would love to arrest them all but he knows that he’d look foolish to incarcerate the support crew that was keeping the Vulture’s crew alive, not to mention keeping a potential bomb from falling back from the sky to obliterate the city. Further, the public becomes immediately captivated by the Vulture’s moon mission. NASA’s teams themselves became Harry’s biggest amazing peoples, pledging any support they could (including the “loan” of the guidance computer link) to help the Vulture complete its mission.

Mel and Skip make their landing near an unspecified Apollo landing site and, in surplus space suits, pack up what they Apollo relics they can into the Vulture’s half-empty fuel tank, a diaphragm that rides up as fuel was depleted to leave cargo space. The new moonwalkers or Harry’s team don’t realize that a leak has formed in the dangerous and toxic fuel tank. Will the Vulture and her crew return to Earth safely?

Duh. But it’s still fun to see how.

or you may be fortunate to find a video tape copy or DVD of this pilot. A short-lived TV series, called “Salvage 1,” called for Harry and Company to improvise creative ways to salvage or obtain incredible finds, such as moving a freshwater iceberg. Sadly, the TV series hadn't the creativity of the film.

The Vulture itself is, in my opinion, one of the handsomest (and realistic) of TV’s fictional spacecraft (Only the Eagle from “Space: 1999” seemed more viable to me in prior days). There was once a website dedicated to the movie and TV series that also linked to free paper model printouts of the vehicle. Looks like a GeoCities cache was made,  which you can find here. Given the simple elements of the ship’s design, a few modelers have made the Vulture from actual scale model parts of tanker trucks and cement mixers.

In a time where the United States had not launched a manned space flight in nearly 5 years (and would not fly a manned mission of any kind at all for another 2 years), “Salvage” was a fun diversion, not just for a believable-enough soft-SF TV film but an enjoyable remembrance of spaceflight nostalgia as well as reliving the dream that, someday, with some hard work, any of us could head to space.

I’d love to ask Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos or their employees if “Salvage” was a personal film favorite or even an inspiration to what their private spacecraft companies have or are striving to achieve in today’s New Space Age.

[tea monster]

I remember this show fondly.  I'm not an aerospace engineer,  but at the time,  it looked like it could actually fly. It's a shame it never (cough) took off.

[the_other_Doug]

Another main point of that premiere episode is (IIRC, it has been more than 45 years) that Harry, at first, was simply looking for a way to bid for a contract to "salvage" an iceberg and move it to a central American port (IIRC) to help ameliorate the effects of a local drought.  It occurred to him that you could use big rocket engines to propel such a large mass through the ocean.  It was an outgrowth of that which resulted in Harry assembling a team that could create an actual spacecraft, not just a rocket pallet for moving icebergs.  (Now, I suppose I could be remembering wrong, and the iceberg deal came after they got the idea of going to the Moon, but I recall it the other way around.)

Interestingly for a series that was canceled after only a handful of episodes (I know it wasn't as much as two full seasons), the final episode actually sort of wrapped up the long story arc -- Harry won the iceberg transport contract and used Salvage 1 to pull the thing across thousands of miles of ocean.  In the meantime, most of the missions the old dump truck went out on had little to do with space travel.  But it was a fun series, with well-written and interesting characters, and I did enjoy it 'way back then.

At least we got to see these episodes -- I've recently run across some interesting details of a Fantastic Four TV show, created by the producers of the syndicated Thriller TV show, that actually shot nine episodes in 1964.  It starred Russel Johnson ("The Professor" from Gilligan's Island) as Reed Richards and Elizabeth Montgomery as Sue Storm, with William Demarest ("Uncle Charlie" from My Three Sons) as Ben Grimm, "The Thing."  The producers had scripts for something like 26 episodes and shot nine of them before pulling the plug -- they couldn't sell the show in syndication, and none of the networks were interested in it.  Several soon-to-be big names in TV guest-starred as well, including a makeup test shot for a never-filmed episode featuring Paul Lynde as The Impossible Man.

From what I can tell, as with the early Thriller shows, it was shot directly onto videotape -- and all the tapes were lost in the early '70s in a warehouse fire.  A late '60s sf con is the only time when any of the episodes were screened by the public.

So -- again, at least we were able to see the episodes of Salvage; there are other sf and fantasy efforts that never saw the light of day.

[MattMason]

I think that Harry's main focus was the moon, and at the very end of the film, someone comes with a proposition for the icebergs.

TV ratings were terrible for SF based shows back then because writing typically was abysmal, either going too light in SF or too far in camp or sillyness. "The Incredible Hulk" was the only TV superhero success that lasted more than 3 years I recall. Even "Star Trek" didn't make it past three in its original run.

So yeah, I agree. I'm happy to get what we could get back then.

[Ronpur50]

I think I have a copy of the movie somewhere.  The series was continuously pre-empted for sporting events.  It's 1st episodes did rather well.  But when you don't air episodes for a few weeks, it looses it's audience.  I remember it being the talk of my classmates.  We always wanted to try to build the Vulture.

[Ronpur50]

I do and I am watching it now!  Trans-linear vector principle, lol.  Slow and constant acceleration.  It made sense when I was a child.

Oh, and Monohydrazine fuel.

[MattMason]

I do and I am watching it now!  Trans-linear vector principle, lol.  Slow and constant acceleration.  It made sense when I was a child.

Thanks for finding the name of Skip's theory. That was clearly the ultimate suspension of disbelief for those in the industry. But the movie didn't handwave it; they made you believe it would work, and used drama to emphasize how really, really badly it would turn out if Skip and Mel were wrong. I need to watch it again, but if you see any fun bits of note in technical terms, just shout.

[Ronpur50]

Yep, the race track sequence made total sense. 

Mid point velocity, 86,000 MPH.  Then they slow down to landing at a constant rate.  1000 gals of Mono-hydrazine (only need 800!).  Vulture 30 feet tall, 10 feet in diameter.  Oh, and an ignition key from a car to start the engines, lol.

[Ronpur50]

A screen cap, the Vulture lifts off from the moon.

[Ronpur50]

And landing (out of control) on the moon.....near a very bad moon set!

I think the photo on the moon above was created much later.  Nothing that good appears in the movie.

[Ronpur50]

Testing the Vulture

[Ronpur50]

And the launch.  It looks like they did these shots with the full size mock-up. 

[Ronpur50]

And the interior of the cockpit, with Skip and Mel.

[Ronpur50]

And the return home, interrupting a bunch of picnics.  Then Harry climbs a fireman ladder to open the hatch.  Andy Griffith was holding onto the rail with a death grip, and I can't get a shot of all 3 actors.  He must not have liked being up on the ladder.

[Ronpur50]

Another main point of that premiere episode is (IIRC, it has been more than 45 years) that Harry, at first, was simply looking for a way to bid for a contract to "salvage" an iceberg and move it to a central American port (IIRC) to help ameliorate the effects of a local drought.  It occurred to him that you could use big rocket engines to propel such a large mass through the ocean.  It was an outgrowth of that which resulted in Harry assembling a team that could create an actual spacecraft, not just a rocket pallet for moving icebergs.  (Now, I suppose I could be remembering wrong, and the iceberg deal came after they got the idea of going to the Moon, but I recall it the other way around.)

The ice berg happens at the end.  A local official from drought stricken northern California wants the team to go to the North Pole to get an ice berg to bring to their town to help solve the drought.  At the time, there was talk of another movie, but when the series started, the ice berg episode was much later, and they went south instead of north!

[the_other_Doug]

Another main point of that premiere episode is (IIRC, it has been more than 45 years) that Harry, at first, was simply looking for a way to bid for a contract to "salvage" an iceberg and move it to a central American port (IIRC) to help ameliorate the effects of a local drought.  It occurred to him that you could use big rocket engines to propel such a large mass through the ocean.  It was an outgrowth of that which resulted in Harry assembling a team that could create an actual spacecraft, not just a rocket pallet for moving icebergs.  (Now, I suppose I could be remembering wrong, and the iceberg deal came after they got the idea of going to the Moon, but I recall it the other way around.)

The ice berg happens at the end.  A local official from drought stricken northern California wants the team to go to the North Pole to get an ice berg to bring to their town to help solve the drought.  At the time, there was talk of another movie, but when the series started, the ice berg episode was much later, and they went south instead of north!

Kewl.  Hey, after nearly 40 years, I'm lucky I remembered the iceberg at all!  I really only recall it because "the iceberg job" became a running theme throughout the run of the show -- it was always the next thing on their agenda, and plans for it kept getting put off as the drama-of-the-week unfolded.

ISTR the show started to slide down into a strange mixture of comedy and campy spy stuff.  The ship was used more often to go into some foreign country to take down a bad guy, or to rescue a good guy, than it was used to actually go into space.  There was something about an FBI agent or something like that, who kept threatening them with prosecution over the lunar landing incident if they didn't help Their Government root out the bad guys.  Thus allowing the standard Burbank hacks to write the standard rotten TV drivel of the time, rather than trying to plot a TV show around the concept of "Hey, we have a working spaceship -- after going to the Moon, what should we do with it?"

Some episodes were rather entertaining, though, and I though the romance that developed between Mel and Skip was kind of cute, for the time.

A similar concept was done for two seasons a year or so later -- a rather silly show called The Greatest American Hero.  Actually, the concepts were not that similar.  But in both, a regular person (or group of people) acquire a tool of amazing power and potential usefulness, and are forced by Their Government to use these tools for silly espionage affairs.  Again, a way to avoid addressing what should have been the main question that the series could have explored.

TV got a whole lot better, IMHO, in another 8 to 10 years, when most of the shows began to be produced separately from the networks that carried them, and thus escaped the networks censoring their content and preventing them from telling the stories the creators wanted to tell.  We got some real edgy and better-produced TV, including fantasy and science fiction, once shows like Babylon 5, ST:TNG and others began running and telling their stories as their creators intended, not what some talentless bean counters decided was acceptable and affordable for them to produce.

BTW, thanks for the screen shots, Ron!  I had completely forgotten about them landing in someone's picnic!  (And that was on the Moon... )

[Prober]

on utube Stupid fun 

[Stan-1967]

Testing the Vulture

The vehicle in Salvage looks pretty close to the Mars ascent vehicle in "The Martian" official trailer!

[savuporo]

Imaginge if one day Mythbusters or someone like that could afford to produce an actual space salvage/history show. My top of the mind things to visit first would be 1965-027A and 1970-103A