The Green Slime

is a 1968 tokusatsu science fiction film directed by Kinji Fukasaku and produced by Walter Manley and Ivan Reiner. It was written by William Finger, Tom Rowe and Charles Sinclair from a story by Reiner. The film was shot in Japan with a Japanese director and film crew, but with the non-Japanese starring cast of Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel and Luciana Paluzzi. After destroying a huge asteroid that was on a rapid collision course with Earth, a group of astronauts discover they have accidentally returned to their space station with an alien slime creature that feeds on radiation and can reproduce rapidly from its own blood. Plot A group of scientists discover that an asteroid, named Flora (which may or may not be the real asteroid 8 Flora, although the mass of 6,000,000 tons or tonnes given for Flora is orders of magnitude less than the mass of 8 Flora), is on a collision course with Earth. The space program summons Commander Jack Rankin to take command of space station Gamma 3 and destroy the asteroid, stating that if he should fail to not bother coming back because the asteroid collision would cause an extinction event. Rankin goes to Gamma 3 where he runs into an old comrade Commander Vince Elliot, with whom he has a history. Nevertheless, Rankin carries out the mission commanding a shuttle onto the surface of Flora to set bombs to destroy it. While on the surface, they discover a strange amoeba like creature attaching to their vehicles and sucking the energy out. The science officer Dr Halversen tries to bring a sample of the green substance aboard the shuttle in a sealed container, but Rankin angrily throws the container to the ground causing it to shatter and some of the green slime to attach to Halversen's space suit.