Don't rule out spaceships entirely. ERB's own Carson of Venus series (Pirates of Venus, 1932) had the hero launching himself heavanward in a bona fide rocketship. In the later John Carter of Mars novels (Skeleton Men of Jupiter), Martian airships became capable of interplanetary travel. And ERB's The Moon Maid features antigravity ships capable of reaching the moon.
And while Burroughs' focus is on nubile alien princesses rather than gee-whiz gadgetry, his series do introduce some nifty hardware: radium guns, antigravity ships, battleship-mounted disintegrator cannon, longevity serums, flying harnesses.
The Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon newspaper strips (especially the latter) inhabited the same niche in popular culture. Once he crashed on Mongo, Gordon was more concerned with rescuing Dale Arden, avoiding the unwanted affections of various unscrupulous nubile alien princesses, and swashbuckling adventure against an encyclopedia's worth of [fill-in-the-blank]-men than he was understanding the wonders of the galaxy.
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