Journey into Space
½ hour science fiction episodes

Journey into Space was a science fiction serial radio program produced by the BBC and aired from 1953-1956.  The program was has three separate series: Journey to the Moon (sometimes called Operation Luna), The Red Planet, and The World in Peril.  The plots deal with mankind traveling to the moon, exploring Mars, and stopping an impending Martian invasion (that should give you a small indication of how visiting the Red Planet went.)
The series were written and produced by Charles Chilton, who also went on to write a few novels based on the radio program.  To keep audience interest up, he ended each program with a cliffhanger ending. The program really caught on in England, and a weekly comic strip, also written by Chilton was published in the Express Weekly, fans of the show include Stephen Hawking. This was the last radio program in England to have a greater audience than the new fangled television shows that were airing in the 50s.
The main cast included: Andrew Faulds as Captain Andrew"Jet" Morgan, Guy Kingsley Poynter as Doc Matthews, the character of Stephen Mitchell was played by a few people, but mostly by Bruce Beeby, and Lemmy was also portrayed by a variety of actors, but mostly by David Kossoff. In addition to these four characters, the show employed  a wide variety of roles including a time traveler, Jet’s uncle, and assorted space control people. As was needed for a show that transported the listener to far off worlds and introduced them to new landscapes and creatures, the music and sound effects played a significant role in the show.  Van Phillips composed and conducted the music throughout the three series.  The BBC used an in-house echo chamber for many of the sound effects, as well as all of the other radio techniques learned over the previous decades.  This was a fun top quality show that still has a following in England.