... making sure to keep Americans up at night with nightmares; 'Pageant' magazine, February, 1951.
1950 ... designing cities to be bombed?!
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
1950 ... shooting at the sky!
... as bombers became faster and flew higher and higher; shooting them down with conventional Anti-Aircraft Artillery would become virtually impossible. But by 1960 and the advent of effective guided Surface to Air Missiles the situation reversed.
... when regular won't do it!
... top image is a size comparison between normal steel bar used in 'reinforced concrete' and the nuclear blast resistant type used in construction of this ICBM 'command capsule'.
... as pointed out before; when thinking about these underground structures it is an easy mistake to imagine them tunneled out like a mining operations. They are usually gigantic holes with the structures built at the bottom and then filled in.
1951 ... 'Pogo' VTOL [my artwork]
... more fantastic, almost made-it technology from the Cold-War. As I get better at this Aerospace Art stuff; it's big fun to create imagery that has never existed before. Imagining what some of these crazy-cool brainchilds would have been like if they had gone on to fruition and even combat. All sorts of factors come into play with the various scenarios.
One interesting point is 'need'. How badly was a VTOL ship based convoy protection needed? In WWII convoy air cover was vital and pivotal. In the Cold War it was one of those 'hmmm' questions. But without the reality of millions of tons of vital supplies going to the bottom, the Military-Industrial Complex had time and money to screw around as much as they wanted. Besides- the technology was moving so fast that before it got off the drawing board an idea was already obsolete.
all images- Right click- open in New Window or Tab = super colossal size!
... happy shelter time!
... 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!
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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!
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