The film also incorporated concepts from von Braun's 1952 book "The Mars Project", as well as material appearing in the April 30, 1954, issue of "Collier's" magazine, "Can we get to Mars?" by von Braun, with Cornelius Ryan. This would later be incorporated into the 1956 Viking Press book "The Exploration of Mars" by Willy Ley, Wernher von Braun, and Chesley Bonestell. All of these books mainly feature text that is straight popular science, with no fictional characters or story line. In addition, according to director Byron Haskin, "We had Wernher von Braun on the set all the time...as a technical advisor".