... would love to interview those kids!. Wow- what was it like to be cooped up in that tiny space for a week? Bet Richard and Sharon-Ann became Gin-Rummy experts!
1945 ... what ended the war!
... from Fall 1945 'Life' magazine. More facts coming out about the Atomic Bomb.
I have long maintained that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the sacrificial cities that prevented a nuclear, apocalyptic World War Three. Without this firsthand knowledge, without this horrible experience; using these weapons in a general war would have been inevitable.
1945 ... people start to learn about the Atom Bomb!
... Trinity test site, Alamogordo, New Mexico. Site of very first atomic test blast. That's the kind of a scorch mark you get when detonating a 20 kiloton bomb. Light area is sand turned to glass by the fireball heat. This is from a Fall 1945 issue of 'Life' magazine. Average Americans are starting to get details about the wonder weapon that suddenly, unexpectedly ended WWII.
... the cute will survive!
... somehow this is a topic where cute equals creepy!
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1955 ... 'doom-town' USA
... 'Operation Teapot' An unusually tall Civil Defense official poses with condemned mannequins inside a typical American suburban house about a mile from ground zero for a 20 kiloton atomic bomb test.
... these lesbian mannequins were able to make a final contribution to a wholesome, Communist free American way of life.
... Strategic Air Command- Center - Offutt AFB
... always fascinating to catch glimpses of the underground control-command bunker for SAC deep under Offutt Air Force base. Lots of heavy, reliable old technology. Overhead projectors just like we had in grade school !
Here's a link to a surprisingly detailed view (your tax dollars at work) in 1964 Air Force vivid Ektachrome.
... new posts
If you like a blog- it's nice to know that you can come to it on a regular basis and see something new!
I will try my best to put up new posts once a week on the weekend; or by the latest Monday. Enjoy!
... B-58 'Hustler' crew
...not sure about those 'mission marks'; but I suspect it has to do with test drops of the various weapons pods.
... when you think of food - think of missiles!
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1951 ... ready to slug it out!
... with the America grimly mired in Korea the inevitability of a war with the Soviet Union was on a lot of minds. Barely five years after the end of World War II it felt as if the Communist monolith headed by Stalin was pushing toward WW 3!
We should give credit to nuclear deterrence as keeping the world from getting into what would have been a conventional war as terrible as the one that had just finished. If the US had not had a monopoly on the A-bomb would the Soviets have pushed over all of Europe? How much safer and happier would Stalin have been with a secure empire from the Atlantic to the Pacific?
1950 ... sneaky Reds (Korea)
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1951 ... fill-er-up!
... XC-99 (cargo version of the B-36 bomber) imagined as a gigantic tanker airplane. Never happened. The first USAF tankers in service were converted B-29 Superfortresses. Then a bloated version of the B-29 the KC-97. All the while the prop driven tankers were way too slow for the early jets they were refueling making the procedure dangerous and cumbersome. In spite of adding jet pods to help the props the system did not find perfection until the 1957 introduction of the famous KC-135 all jet tanker. This was the military version of what would go on to become the Boeing 707; America's first jet airliner. The military and the nuclear deterrence came first. Tourists and businessmen had to wait another year (1958) for 707 and American jet-travel.
note: refueling passenger jets in flight was too dangerous and expensive to ever be seriously considered.
note: refueling passenger jets in flight was too dangerous and expensive to ever be seriously considered.
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1952 ... ooo- that's a big one!
... full concept painting for a 1952 issue of 'Weird Fantasy' comics. Love how the Hudson River is starting to fill in the crater.
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1958 ...sex, spark-plugs and missiles!
... leave it to Madison Avenue to infer that this winsome queen of domesticity will be waiting for you when you get home from a long day of planning on how to blow-up the world!
1951 ... dreams of atomic flight!
... still hard to wrap my head around the idea of no fuel being burned- just lots of hot air! Atomic reactors and airplanes do not mix. One is crazy heavy and bulky! The opposite of what you want an airplane to be! The idea of flying around forever on a handful of uranium pellets sounds very cool! But more efficient jet engines and (the less crazy idea) of transferring fuel from a tanker airplane won out.
Also; nobody really needs to fly around the world several times without landing. The need is to go to a destination; to visit or bomb. The need for this type of technology was short lived. Soon surpassed by the range and speed of missiles.
The more I look at Cold War nuclear war technology, the more I find myself repeating the phrase "it only has to work once!"
(note: this illustration clearly shows the British Saunders-Roe 'Princess' flying boat. Though obsolete before finished, it was of interest to American mad-scientists who saw it's vast size as possibly able to accommodate a nuclear power plant.)
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