First seen as a blur in the sky when Tim spots it, the ship crash lands on its side and a scar serving as evidence of the impact remains on the hull throughout the first two seasons.

Initially, in order to be light enough to be lifted, the Martian spaceship prop was made of wood that was painted silver. It was then recast by Joe Lombardi using a stone mold into fiberglass with a steel underskeleton, resulting in the ship weighing upwards of 400 lbs. This became a problem while shooting the episode Rocket to Mars, when one of the three steel cables flying the ship away from the carousel broke, almost killing Ray Walston's stand-in who was riding inside it. As a result, when the shot was restarted, they chose to leave the cockpit empty, as Mr. Walston would not allow them to endanger his stand in/assistant.*

*(added 4/26/05 with special thanks to Peter Greenwood)

The Spaceship was usually featured at night, taking off in darkness, and an animation illustrated its flight across the night sky.

Based on an observation of the bottom of the hull, it can be inferred that the ship had three retractable legs but they were never actually shown in operation.

The one-seated spaceship did have an interior set, though it was rarely seen. The thin rod on the right of the square light board served to guide the ship into landing. A round communication screen is above the square, and red and green square buttons are at the left of the screen.

The interior set was built for the second season episode Great Brain Robbery and appeared again in the second season’s Martin’s Favorite Martian and the third season’s That Time Machine is Waking Up That Old Gang of Mine.

In a conversation with a fan, Mr.Walston mentioned that there was really very minimum room to move inside the actual spaceship prop itself. Nevertheless, he said that in episodes where the ship was on the set, Bill Bixby could often be found sitting in the craft during breaks in filming, as Bill took great delight in the prop vehicle.**

(**added 9/9/05 with thanks and appreciation to Koby)

After the series was over, the spaceship prop was rumored to have gone into the collection belonging to the "Planes of Fame" Museum in Buena Park, California.

*added 9/9/05, courtesy of Stephen Wilson

In the mid-1970s it was loaned out for display at the Union Bank of Fullerton, California.*

*(added 9/2/02)

In the summer of 1985 the spaceship prop was sold for $750 at a Hollywood car auction at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It changed hands after that and in 1993 it was reported to be residing in the archives of a Los Angeles TV memorabilia collector.

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