The fascination with outer space exploration and interplanetary travel (and evil aliens) fueled a lot of 1950s science fiction cinema. Usually it was either the after effects of space travel causing more harm than anticipated (the Quatermass Xperiment: The Creeping Unknown is a good example), or it was finding out that once you got to where you were going, monstrous alien monsters (I'm open to a better term if you've got one) wanted to eat you or do other nasty things (like in The Angry Red Planet). Then, of course, you had George Pal insisting on giving us movies that focused on the more positive and challenging aspects of space exploration. He even insisted on adding as much scientifically accurate information (at least what was known back then) as possible. Wild, right? Here's the pressbook for George Pal's Conquest of Space.