Gimme Shelter

“It's a den of noise

Filled with fidgety boys

Our home beneath the firmament

And I'm glad it's a phase

Just lasting two days

Rather than something that's permanent.”

-”The Shelter”^[SESP]

On July 31^st, 1959, two young parents and their three children entered an 8-foot-by-9-foot soundproof room in the basement of a laboratory at Princeton University. They stayed inside for the next fourteen days.^[Ve][MN]

The Philosopher's Bomb, Part 2

Those Magnificent Men and their Atomic Machines

The Philosopher's Bomb: Discovering New Elements with Nuclear Explosions

Part II

Back to Part I

With Special Thanks to Dr. Stephen A. Becker and Dr. David W. Dorn

For first time readers, part I should be read before reading part II.

Atomic Machines 2

I've written a second atompunk history sampler for Alternate History Weekly Update.   You can read it here.

"Hot Flight"

Someone called AVHistoryBuff posted a very interesting video on YouTube recently: Hot Flight: The Quest for Nuclear-Powered Flight.   I highly recommend it; it's an old Air Force propaganda film from the '50s discussing the Convair NB-36H flights.   For those not familiar with this, they installed a 1 MWth research reactor in the bomb bay of a B-36 and flew it around - it didn't propel the airplane, it was only used to gather data on radiation shielding.

Incidentally, there's no mention in the film of the cargo plane full of paratroopers that supposedly trailed the NB-36H in case it crashed.   I've been wondering for a while now if that may be just an urban legend.

(Hat tip sferrin of the Secret Projects forum.)