SCIFI.radio is pleased to be able to present the remarkable science fiction radio series X Minus 1. You can tune in Fridays and Saturdays at 10:00PM Pacific time to hear a different episode every time.

Initially a revival of NBC’s Dimension X (1950–51), the first 15 episodes of X Minus One were new versions of Dimension X episodes, but the remainder were adaptations by NBC staff writers, including Ernest Kinoy and George Lefferts, of newly published science fiction stories by leading writers in the field, including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Frederik Pohl and Theodore Sturgeon, along with some original scripts by Kinoy and Lefferts. The series aired between 1955 and 1958. There were 126 episodes.

Included in the series were adaptations of Robert Sheckley’s Skulking Permit, Bradbury’s Mars Is Heaven, Robert Heinlein’s Universe, and The Green Hills of Earth, Frederick Pohl’s The Tunnel under the World, J. T. McIntosh’s Hallucination Orbit, Fritz Leiber’s A Pail of Air and George Lefferts’ The Parade.

The program opened with announcer Fred Collins delivering the countdown, leading into the following introduction (although later shows were partnered with Galaxy Science Fiction rather than Astounding Science Fiction):

Countdown for blastoff… X minus five, four, three, two, X minus one… Fire! [Rocket launch SFX] From the far horizons of the unknown come transcribed tales of new dimensions in time and space. These are stories of the future; adventures in which you’ll live in a million could-be years on a thousand may-be worlds. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with Street and Smith, publishers of Astounding Science Fiction presents… X Minus One.