Off Topic Picture - 1962

[CINDERS]

Well I must admit I have never heard of the atomic powered aircraft that is real fanciful stuff just what the world needs flying atomic reactors!

[Mark in Rochester]

Well I must admit I have never heard of the atomic powered aircraft that is real fanciful stuff just what the world needs flying atomic reactors!

[matthanne1]

Wow, if the Enterprise had had that on board, Spock would not have had to die....

[us019255]

As a child of the 50's I vividly remember the two opposing views of atomic energy. On one hand we were drilled in school how to hide under our desks to be safe from atomic attack. (I early decided that this was a farce after reading a Mad Magazine that parodied the posters: "In case of attack bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your *** goodbye"), and articles and news stories touting atomic powered everything including airplanes.

---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:17 PM ----------

and kiss your *** goodby

Another example of the changes in our society. The PC police have this website censoring words that were published in a magazine in the '50's.

[Bob Womack]

I grew up one ridge over from Oak Rdge, TN, the U.S. capital of nuclear energy and nuclear material weaponization. There were obsolescent nuclear reactors displayed on the street corners in that city. Not a joke. It was a first strike soviet nuclear target throughout the cold war. Oak Ridge had an interceptor squadron parked on the airfield a mile away from me that defended it throughout the fifties and sixties. I had an uncle who was a nuclear chemist on the Manhattan project, friends who worked in the labs and plants. I knew how to operate a remote articulator (mechanical arm) before I got into junior high. They didn't even bother teaching us the nuclear survival drills. Too close.

Bob

[us019255]

They didn't even bother teaching us the nuclear survival drills

A crazy time for sure. Lots of stuff said and done by the government that made absolutely no sense. In Mpls-St. Paul, as all cities, there were evacuation route signs on main roads. In case of an attack warning we were supposed to evacuate the city in cars. Now we have all seen the clogged roads when people try to leave a coastal area when a hurricane comes. One of my college classmates in St Paul, calculated that the center of the Twin Cities was the Ford bridge over the Mississippi, his plan was to walk there and sit on it until the bomb went off. One of these plans did save a bunch of lives in a suburb. There is a subdivision that was built where each house had a fallout shelter. A tornado hit it with no loss of life because the residents had gone to the shelters.