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Jetsons will be shocked to see this

 Among the fascinating concepts that appeared in the 1940s-60s magazines are some pretty good ones that could even prompt interest inmodern designers and manufacturers. Other ideas, on the contrary, did not age well and may appear nuttier than a drunk hamster on atreadmill.

Regardless of their potential and practicality, these glorious glimpses into transportation's elusive future can speak to us on some deep level- whispering perhaps to forsake that lumbering sport-utility for a slim and mean aerocar, which will transport us in a blink of an eye to... alas,

the same old strip mall for groceries.

Picked mostly from little-known Eastern Bloc publications, most of the concepts shown here are the product of socialist and communistresearch, often as unrealistic, as their leader's plans for global utopia.

Soviet-dreamed Giant Catamaran - Supertanker - Icebreaker Hybrid:(with parts of some nuclear submarine thrown in for good measure)

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(art by TM, Russia 1974)

Fantastic Avionics

Russian concept of the rotor-plane, 1960:

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Soviets also proposed to stick together a bunch of big airplanes to make a REALLY huge one. Kind of like a Lego dream come true:

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(art by TM, Russia 1966)

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This American concept shows the ultimate helicopter:(at least the largest we've seen drawn on paper)

(art by Radebaugh)

 An interesting helicopter also can be found inside this issue of Startling Stories, 1940:

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Ekranoplans & Hydrofoils

 Ahhh... How can we not mention the "wing-in-ground-effect" liners? Russia was crazy about ekranoplans and hydrofoils for some time. Hereis an ultimate replacement for a passenger airliner:"The Glider" super hydrofoil, 1960

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and a huge passenger/cargo ekranoplan:(click to enlarge)

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(art by TM, Russia 1965)

German version of water/highway transport system, more focused on personal transport:

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(image credit: retro-futurismus.de)

Russian Spiral Vehicle

This is a vehicle that literally "screws around a lot" to get somewhere. Never mind the possibility of it being built (there was actually some talkabout prototypes spotted in the Russian Army), the vehicle like this would need a lot of "personal space" while it moves. Nobody wants toend up wrapped around the spirals like some kind of spaghetti.

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(art by TM, Russia 1961)

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Spirals/ screws were popular in the US, too. Witness "The Sea Slug" -

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Russian climbing robot personal vehicle. Good to climb the walls of your office building when late for work:

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(art by TM, Russia 1970)

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American Dream produced some dreamy vehicles

 America saw a lot of big and powerful cars in the 50s-60s (see some of them here). But first, American Transportation Dream required awide system of interstates across the country. Here is a vision of the robotic highway-making machine, which would only require a singleoperator (from 1943):

(images credit: Transportation Futuristics)

Beautiful supertruck, imagined by the US Royal Tires:

(I had a toy like this once)

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(image credit: retro-futurismus.de)

Strangely sinister-looking atomic truck. Raw Nuclear Power!

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 Artists dreamed of futuristic cars, hurtling down the highway:

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(art by Adragna for Amazing, Sept 1964)

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(art by Devon Francis, The New York Times Magazine, 1959)

Meet the Jetsons! Futuristic version of "yabba-dabba-doo" in the sky:

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(image credit: Plan59)

This aerocar concept from 1967 looks just like my old trusty barbeque in the backyard, complete with the burners.

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(art by Popular Science, July 1957)

Note the bottom vehicle in this MAI Russian concept line-up from 1955. Seems like some ideas can float in the air... and across the ocean:

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Flying car, according to the Soviet designers, 1967:

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and American Modern Mechanix version, much earlier:

(image credit: blog.modernmechanix.com)

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(art by Radebaugh)

Bizarre Offerings

True Rollerball! "Trade you trouble for a bubble"?!(gets my vote for the dumbest ad one-liner):

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(image credit: David Zondy)

Octagonal Wheeled Watercraft from 1935 issue of Popular Science:

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Strange wheel placement:

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(image credit: Plan59)

Goofy-looking Modern Mechanix sphere-wheeled vehicles:

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Huge "navi-trucks" will traverse the Earth, according to this 1933 vision. They will be able to penetrate the hardest terrain - the ultimate off-road! And a biggest SUV to boot.

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Flying saucers continue to pop up in the minds of designers, bringing with them little green ideas. This is a "Flying Saucer Bus":

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(art by Science and Mechanics, December 1950)

Monorail Dreams

In some extreme cases, we'd rather say - "monorail hallucinations"... A concept proposed by Popular Science magazine for the World's Fair in 1939:(cars, passengers all cozy up together inside a cage in the sky)

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This (almost) got made: (almost) realistic proposal for rapid transit in Washington, D.C. by D.C. Transit System, Inc., 1959:

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Elements of "shark fin" car design can be traced in this 1962 Goodell Monorail:

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This monorail is... unhappy:

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 Another Russian concept: "Monorail SuperTrain". Double size everything:

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(image credit: retro-futurismus.de)

Urban tube train system. Looks good, but if it gets too complex, the maze of tunnels may suddenly snap into the 4th dimension. Read A. J.Deutsch's story "A Subway Called Moebius", where "the system becomes so tangled that it turns into a Moebius strip, and trains start todisappear":

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(image credit: retro-futurismus.de)

Bohn Designs from 1947

Finally, a series of classic concept transportation images from Bohn - aluminum & brass company from Michigan.

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(image credit: plan59)

Yet nothing beats this steampunk "Flying Steam Liner". It can single-handedly cause a global warming, we're sure:

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(art by Michal Kwolek)

Do not allow anybody to steal your excitement about the future!

It seems that in the early 1950s and well into the 1970s many (if not the majority) of designers and engineers still felt the unboundedoptimism about developing technology and man's ability to conquer the unknown - and this exuberance was gloriously reflected in many wilddesigns from leading futurism concept artists of that period.

We feel compelled to continue with our retro-future series, and today we present the next installment in "Futuristic Transportation" - read thefirst part here. Wait for images to load, then scroll to enjoy:

CARS...

Feast your eyes on this wild sketch for an automobile a product of Ford design studio in 1954:

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Feast your eyes on this wild sketch for an automobile, a product of Ford design studio in 1954:

(image via)

Firebird III concept by GM, 1958:

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(image via)

Goodyear 's "Amtronic" concept vehicle:

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(images via)

Even cooler: "Endless Belt Trains for the Future Cities", 1932 -

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(image via)

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(art by Syd Mead from his book "Sentinel")

Syd Mead's student work from 1958 looked pretty groovy already:

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 As a side note, 1958 was pretty wild year for outrageous car concepts: here is the atrocious LAND BOAT -

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UPDATE: this is actually an exaggerated concept - spoof of the excesses of the 1950s car design (from a book "The Last Dream-o-Rama").

 As for some future scenarios... in case of apocalyptic shortage of gas, for example, try the solution from occupied Holland, 1941:

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(image via)

More recent solution: 2008 British Steam Car, capable of reaching 170 mph (more info):

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(image via)

Modular truck with extending cabin:

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(image via)

TRAINS...

 A fragment of futuristic train (possibly Russian in origin... similar to some Luigi Colani's designs):

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(image credit: Marcin Jakubowski)

Soviet monorail trains - and American cars? - on the cover of Communist scientific magazine from the 1960s:

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Russian designers did indeed dream about American cars at the time, here is proof (below left). In the meantime they were coming up withprototypes for screw-drive off-road vehicle (below right):

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BOATS...

Don't miss the Screw Ship, 1939 - better than a submarine! (more info)

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(images via)

Even weirder are the Turbo-Wheel Liners...

Interesting concepts of cruise ships (and mega-yachts):

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(images via)

AIRPLANES...

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(images via 1, 2)

Not many people remember Bill Horton's "Wingless Plane" - see video - basically a lifting body concept, quite radical for 1952:

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(images via Popular Science magazine)

Even stranger is the unknown prototype plane (below left), or rather just a flying turbine:

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(images via)

The VTOL plane on above right is the infamous SNECMA - Coleoptere from France (more info).

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Concepts of some heavy bombers from the 1970s:

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(images via)

Supersonic planes "New York Brunch - Paris Lunch" from Vanadium Corp. of America, 1958 -

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(image via)

Don't miss "Strange Lifting Force for A Huge Airplane" idea from old Modern Mechanix, click here. A gyro-plane on a humongous scale. Andthe imposing Atomic Plane from the same source.

MISC...

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Why move only the furniture? You can transport the whole house inside this truck (and the moving crew can travel in double-decker comfort,too):

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Sectional Buses, 1948 - more info:

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Unnamed hybrid vehicle. Wait... it actually has a name: "The Rad" - and, it's a concept for Batman Returns!

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(image via)

Desert bus replaces camels - provided there is a thriving tourism industry (more info):

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(image credit: Modern Mechanix)

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(left: the wood cutter of the future, via - right: rubber-footed mountain busses, via, bottom: Curtis-Wright's Bee, via)

Very strange method of lunar transportation, suggested by Mattel Inc. Toymakers:

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Other vintage toys still retain some charm:

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(bottom image: "Operations in Antarctica", by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Bill Cotter, via)

The Mars Liner concept, by Christoph Anczykowski:

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(image credit: Christoph Anczykowski)

The Ultimate Transport, of course, is your private asteroid - hollowed out and outfitted with stellar drives (the idea proposed in John W.Campbell's Analog way back in the 1950s):

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(illustration by Roy D. Scaffo, Scaffo Studio, via)

If you can't snatch an asteroid, the Empire State Building will have to do:

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The yellowing brittle pulp pages of the 1940s science fiction magazines are not going to survive in pristine collectible condition much longer,no matter what the prices on eBay might imply. It is our hope that the contents of these magazines will be preserved online (as the copyrighton many of them has expired), but before that happens, here is a little taste of the rarest and most interesting 1950s space art and cover illustrations:

British Pulps and Paperbacks Oozed a "Sense of Wonder" All Over the Bookshelves

They are also some of the hardest to find today. "Vargo Statten" (published by Scion Publications) and "Tit-Bits Science Fiction Library" wereat the forefront of scifi paperback industry in the 1950s Britain, most written by a handful of writers (John Russel Fearn, E. C. Tubb, KennethBulmer, Robert L. Fanthorpe) using multiple pseudonyms. The quality of such fiction was highly debatable, but the cover art was great -sometimes as garish as the "purple prose" contained within:

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"The Master Weed?" No, the other weed... an alien plant that certainly looks very big and thriving, being harvested from the crater:

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The "Exile from Jupiter" features a nice flying disc spacecraft concept, somewhat reminiscent of the Star Trek's USS Enterprise:

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Spectacular spaceships explode from the covers of these obscure editions:

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"Planetoid Disposals, Inc." by Volsted Gridban! If you are thinking that Volsted Gridban must be a pen name, you are correct. This is one of 

dozens of pen names of John Russel Fearn, sometimes a "house name" (also accomodating stories by E. C. Tubb) - see our huge list of science fiction pen names here.

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You gotta admit that "Ray Cosmic" is a pretty awesome pseudonym for a 1950s pulp writer (used by John S. Glasby):

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Practical Mechanics was a popular-science British magazine published by George Newnes, Ltd., which often featured futuristic illustrations.The cover on the right shows a space station similar to the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey :

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Rare American Editions Featuring Spectacular space Art

Beautiful planetary exploration (or invasion?) scene, painted by Alexander Leydenfrost:

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(art by Alexander Leydenfrost)

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(cover for Astounding Science Fiction, August 1941)

Some of the 1950s paperback science fiction anthologies featured very memorable art, like this intense planetary exploration scene from

"Operation Future" (ed. by Groff Conklin, 1961):

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Dramatic space rescue illustration by Robert Lesser from "Future Fiction" pulp magazine:

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(image via)

Thrilling cover by Lou Cameron for the 1951 issue "Classics Illustrated: The Time Machine":

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This cover for Amazing Stories, July 1947, simply bursts with excitement and sense-of-wonder:

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Legendary Chesley Bonestell was regularly illustrating fantastic and popular science publications; here is a lesser known example:

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(image via)

Here is a collage of Popular Mechanics cover and a 1950 "Destination: Moon" 1950 interior illustration (with some shots from the movie):

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(images via 1, 2)

Exploring the Icarus Asteroid:

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(image via)

 Approaching Mars:

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There are plenty of surprises (and possibly misery) awaiting astronauts on outer space missions - see our Surprised Astronauts article for some fun examples:

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(left: Science Club's "L'homme dans l'espace" publication; right: the "Green Slime" movie, or "Invaders From Beyond the Stars")

Italian Science Fiction Pulp Art

... was also very colorful, and featured beautiful astronaut ladies:

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(on the right above is the underground city from the 1936 "Things To Come" movie)

This great rocket is a fragment of the Utopia magazine cover (see the whole cover here):

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Spectacular and Rare Russian Science Fiction Illustrations

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(various illustrations from the early 1960s issues of "Smena" magazine)

"Smena" magazine 1961 illustrations for "The Astronauts" novel by Stanislaw Lem (1951):

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The "Moon Station Dome", illustration by Andrey Sokolov:

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Some great covers by "Tekhnika Molodezhi" youth science magazine:

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"Meeting Across the Centuries": great romantic Smena illustration:

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 And we finish this short collection of vintage Russian space illustration with this great "Happy New Year" cover:

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(Smena magazine, Russia)

Cut to our times: here is a great example of modern space adventure art

... done in the best tradition of space pulp illustration: "Starcraft Medic" by Korean artist Kim Yong Su -

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(image credit: Kim Yong Su)

"Gentlemen! - Forward, Into the Past!"

It's been some time since we featured glorious space futuristic illustrations from the past (read our previous articles: Retro Future: To TheStars! Part 3, Part 2 and Part 1).

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So today we will once again travel into the world of obscure East-Block and hard-to-find Western pulp 1950s illustrations to see "WhatFuture Used To Be"... in regards to space exploration (long live our memory of the Space Shuttle, alas) and the great starry yonder whereno one has gone before.

Flash Gordon's spaceship is still the most fascinating / colorful -

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(image via)

Rarely seen illustrations from 1950s Germany:

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(art by Kurt Roschl, Germany)

American Space Pulp Illustration

We featured some pulp science fiction artwork before, but the poetry and glamour of Golden Age space illustrations will never fade with us -and so requires constant re-visiting:

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(Illustration by Ed Emshwiller to "Have Space-Suit, Will Travel" by Robert A. Heinlein)

The anatomy of a spaceship is revealed in this dramatic image by Frank R. Paul, Air Wonder Stories August 1929:

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(art by Frank R. Paul)

More Frank R. Paul spaceship action (from "Dynamic Science Fiction" pulp):

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 An awesome planetary exploration vehicle: Lunar Gyro-Scope, from the Mechanix Illustrated 1959:

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(image via)

Very cool interior of a planetary base, by Alexander Leydenfrost:

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"Lunar Explorers", art by Jack Coggins (this spider would give me the creeps, if I were on the Moon with them):

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(image via)

Beautiful 1940s-era spaceship, from "The Stars Look Down" by Lester Del Rey:

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(illustration by Hubert Rogers, Astounding Stories August 1940)

Less elaborate, with cleaner lines is this Imperial ship from "The Logic of Empire" by Robert A. Heinlein:

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(illustration by Hubert Rogers, Astounding Stories, March 1941)

The guy in this rocket seems to be very excited, and also very "low-tech":

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(cover by Howard V. Brown to Astounding Stories, September 1934, via)

Before the Death Star, there were... the mighty spherical spaceships from Jack Williamson's mind-boggling space operas:

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(cover by Howard V. Brown to Astounding Stories, August 1935)

Dangers of the Space-ways! Dramatic encounter with a black-hole-like entity is shown on the cover to "Second Stage Lensmen" by E. E.Doc Smith:

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(illustration by Hubert Rogers, Astounding Stories, December 1941)

Probably the most famous classic story of men's encounter with ferocious alien being: the "Black Destroyer", by A. E. Van Vogt:

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(illustration by Gladney, Astounding Stories July 1939)

When men meet alien blobs, the result will likely be fatal to humans and nutrient-enriching to blobs:

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(Virgil Finlay's illustration to Richard Matheson's story "Being" - IF, August 1954)

Very mysterious / esoteric "Master of the Universe" artwork, extolling the virtues of going into space -

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(illustration by Virgil Finlay for  Astounding Stories, 1945)

More great space scenes from the 1950s:

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(left: art by Welker, from the Illustrated history of Space, 1953 - via)

These guys mean business:

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(art by Alexander Leydenfrost - via)

Simply beautiful -

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(art by Alexander Leydenfrost - via)

Psychedelic swirls abound in space...

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(art from a space gun toy box, circa 1950)

Going back to Victorian illustration, we found this beautiful image of star fields clinging to a tree, by famous fairy-themes artist Dorothy P.Lathrop:

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(art by Dorothy P. Lathrop)

--------

Vintage LP Sleeves Are Ooozing Space All Over!

Space-Age hit instrumentals from the 1960s, of course, came with their share of cosmic adventure covers:

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But even as late as 1977, Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra has commissioned Japanese artist Shusei Nagaoka to create the cover for his "Out of the Blue" masterpiece:

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(cover art by Shusei Nagaoka)

--------

Meanwhile in Russia...

Great space-themed paintings by the Russian futurist artist Andrei Sokolov (who also collaborated with the Soviet cosmonaut-painter AlexeyLeonov). This rare collection came from a set of postcards "The Space Fantasy" (Kosmitcheskaya phantasya, 1963):

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(art by Andrei Sokolov, Russia 1970s-1980s)

 Andrei Sokolov's colorful alien landscapes were regular feature inside the Soviet youth-oriented magazines like "Tekhnika Molodezhi" and"Yuny Tekhnik" in the 1970s. Another great Russian space artist was Nikolai Kolchitsky - his work mostly pre-dated space era, beingpublished in the 1950s popular science books:

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(art by Nikolai Kolchitsky, Russia 1940s-1950s)

See the whole collection of Nikolai Kolchitsky art here.

Other East-Block Cold War Era Illustrations

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(art by Zdenek Burian)

 Another rare and interesting artist from the 1930s and 1940s was Zdenek Burian - a Czech illustrator since the late 1920s (more info):

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(art by Zdenek Burian)

Gennady Golobkov's "Squirrel from Space" (left) and "In the Park; 75th Parallel":

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(art by Gennady Golobkov)

Yuly Schwetz evocative artwork, from 1972 Soviet magazine:

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"The Kosmokrator" spaceship from the first novel by Stanislaw Lem "The Astronauts" (1951) - illustration by the Czech artist Teodor Rotrekl:

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(art by Teodor Rotrekl)

The whole Communist industry is working for the benefit of space exploration on this postcard, issued in 1958:

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So, here we have a slice of the space-bound retro future from the 1940s and 1950s - till next time in our favorite series: To The Stars!

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(illustration to T. D. Hamm's "Native Son", Imagination, July 1953)

We can not get enough of that stuff. The Future that never happened. The Past that kept dreaming and never woke up.

 Also read Part 2 and Part 1

We continue to update our extensive collection of the most inspiring and hard-to-find retro-futuristic images. As usual, we try to stay awayfrom the well-known American pulp and book cover illustrations and instead focus on the artwork from some rather unlikely sources: Sovietand Eastern Bloc "popular tech & science" magazines, German, Italian, British fantastic illustrations and promotional literature - all from the

Golden Age of Retro-Future (from 1930s to 1970s). Wait for images to load.

We'll start with a line-up of neat planetary vehicles, envisioned for "Project Sword" series. Here is a Moon Bus, powered entirely by crude oil:

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(images via)

You have to appreciate the lines of the "First Spaceship on Venus" (from the 1960 East Germany/Poland film):

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Curious how such a cool vintage-streamlined rocket might look on the launch pad? Check out these scenes from a Russian cult-favoritemovie "Nebo Zovyot", 1960 (remade by Roger Corman as "Battle Beyond the Sun"):

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(images via)

Life inside the space station (complete with a space kitten) from the Russian movie "Road To The Stars", 1957 -

(more screenshots and info here)

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(left: "UFO" series; "Land of the Giants" vehicle is on the right)

(left: screenshot from "Space 1999"; right: from "Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun" - via)

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(scenes from the German TV series "Orion Patrol" -  via)

(scenes from the Russian movie "Planeta Bur: The Storm Planet" - see the whole movie here)

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(Russian magazine covers from the 1950s and 1960s)

Great vintage designs from the cover of Hunt Collins' novel "Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (Hunt collins is a pen name of Evan Hunter, better known as Ed McBain) - left image. A curious one-man space platform from the cover of "Weird", Oct 1971 - on the right:

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German rare sci-fi editions yield a peek inside a space port, spaceship maintenance and repair:

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(images via)

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(intense planetary exploration scene from "Operation Future" (ed. by Groff Conklin, 1961) cover - left. Right: "The Space Frontiers", novel by Roger Lee Vernon)

Construction of the space dome on Mars (from "Dan Dare's Space Book", 1954) - below left. And pretty ugly space suits (1952 model)shown on the right:

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(images via) 

Floating in a pretty crowded space, 1950s style:

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(fragment of the cover of "The War Against The Rull" by A. E. Van Vogt; image via)

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(images from the Vols Interplantaires, French space exploration futuristic edition)

Perils of the Spaceways:

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(art by  Alex Schomburg)

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(art by Ed Cartier, illustration to "Tradition" by J. McIntosh, Other Worlds, April 1952)

Vintage Japanese movies also depicted pretty intense space exploration:

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(images via)

Outrageous water-to-air launch jet from Gerry Anderson's UFO series (see some similar real life designs on our page Flying Submarines) -

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(images via)

Great minimalist art from the Russian vintage book "The Flight To The Moon", 1954, showing the Moon Base:

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(image via)

Rare and gorgeous visions of space exploration from the Russian 1950 book "The Rocket":

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(images via)

Pretty detailed art by Jack Coggins from "Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles and Space Ships" (1951) -

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(images via)

Fragment of the Grosset & Dunlap 1950 "Book of Model Spaceships": there is something from the vintage Westerns in this scene -

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(image via)

"The Next 50 Years on the Moon" (by Erik Bergaust, 1974) states that sometime between 1980 and 1990 we will have a permanent Lunar colony:

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(German book covers in the 1960s-1970s)

Of course, no retro-future space art collection will be complete without a mention of Frank R. Paul - the king of science fiction illustrationduring the Age of Wonder (1930s-1940s). Here is his "City on Mars", 1940, and "The Golden City on Titan", 1941:

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(images credit: Frank R. Paul)

One more thing... do you suppose there is such a thing as a Retro Futurism Cute Overload? Well, the utterly adorable and infinitely cheesypicture below may just start the new category :)

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These are very rare and beautiful visions, published in Japan in the 1930s-1960s

We are continuing our ever-popular series of extremely rare and fantastic retrofuture finds (see here), in which we unearth futuristic gemsfrom various countries and strange sources (mostly non-US). Today we will be treading a fertile territory of science fiction art and futuristicillustrations from Japan - a country of unlimited dreams and super-charged imagination.

NOTE: this is wide-format post, best viewed on your computer or iPad (wait for images to load).

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(most images via Japanese sites, including 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Here is the 1948 vision of the "moving platform", that actually envelops the train within (and moves with it for some time):

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This is how it works:

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Super-elevated bus from 1949 - complete with a "Dinosaur Truck" symbol:

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Propeller-drive trains from 1936 (beautiful shapes... graceful as swans):

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Shojo Otomo art from 1967 issue of Shonen magazine, featuring "Lost in Space" hardware:

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Super plane from 1964 Shonen Magazine (see more VTOL concepts in our article "History of the Tailsitter Airplanes" here):

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 Another transportation dream from the same 1964 Shonen issue is this beautiful maglev train, or rather "Air Express":

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Even faster is this rocket transport (also from 1964):

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Quite convoluted, but nevertheless beautiful transportation system idea way back from 1948. This seems to be a multi-level rotating elevator 

bridge... the title says "Extending into the Underground World":

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Flying Saucers? But of course! A disc-shaped aircraft exploring far reaches of the Arctic, from 1957:

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 A huge ship in distress at sea, launching life boats (1936 vision):

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Japanese "Boy's Club" magazine had some futuristic illustrations in the 1930s. Here is 1936 ball-wheeled vehicle idea (similar to the onespublished in Modern Mechanics in the U.S.) -

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On the right are very fast boats, also from 1936.

Busy hovercraft traffic in the future:

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(image via)

Huge hovercraft illustration from 1964 Shonen magazine: "Flying mammoth cruise ships run the Channel" -

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This is interesting: human-powered aircraft from 1965 (not really feasible, but wonderfully colored and detailed concept illustration by Tatsuji

Kajita):

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Shigeri Komatsuzaki's illustration for the "Friends of the High School" almanac from 1953 - quite unusual off-roading truck idea:

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Let's finish this section of futuristic ships and vehicles with the illustration from "Akira", found on 1984 magazine ad for Canon:

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Super-Fantastic Japanese Toys Attack!

Mecha Madness:

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The cover art on some of the toy boxes was truly exceptional:

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This Aoshima's "Mighty Patrol", see the actual toy here:

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 A Space Wheel from the "Battle of the Planets" (1978), see the actual toy here:

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 Another beautiful ship from "Battle of the Planets", made by Entex Toys:

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The Astrocar from Paramount Toys looks super-awesome:

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The actual toy is also pretty rad:

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Midori's King Moguras is as extreme plastic toy as they come:

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Strangely enhanced cars, capable of flying and pretty much everything else:

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Some Japanese visions of the "afterlife" are quite intense, like this one showing the world full of hungry snake monsters, complete withHUMAN EARS! (from 1968 issue of Shonen magazine):

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More Japanese super-fantastic toy madness:

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 And we have to finish with the weirdest vehicle concept ever from Japan (made into an actual toy) - Midori's "Dragon Sub"!

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Looks like something from "Sky Captain & The World of Tomorrow"... maybe?

Space age tea fashion:

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(most images are sourced from Japanese sites, including 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

The 1950s: "We Add Nuclear Power To Everything."

Fans of the old, but still wonderful, Road Runner cartoons might remember Wile E. Coyote's favorite one-stop-shop for mayhem: The AcmeCompany. A clever person – not one of us, alas – once said that Acme's slogan should be "We Add Rockets To Everything."

This, in a kind of round-about way, gets us to the 1950s and the near-obsession that certain engineers had back then with a certain power source. To put it another way, their slogan should have been: "We Add Nuclear Power To Everything."

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(Chinese vintage poster - complete with a glowing mother and a nuclear baby! It says "Implement the Basic National Policy", i. e. only one child per family)

Atoms in the Air 

In all fairness, at first we thought that reactors have proven – for the most part – to be pretty reliable (we are now re-evaluating this again, in

view of recent Japanese disaster). Submarines, commercial power plants, and even monstrous icebreakers have proven that nuclear power can be handy if not essential. But back just a few decades ago there were plans, and even a few terrifying prototypes, that would have madethe Coyote green with envy – and the rest of us shudder in terror.

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(image via)

Both the US and the Soviet Union had engineers with lofty plans to keep bombers in the air indefinitely by using nuclear power. Most folks,with even a very basic knowledge of how reactors work, would think that was a bit (ahem) risky, but what's even scarier is how far alongsome of those plans got.

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(Newsweek cover, 1957 - image via)

Take, for example, the various projects the US undertook. In one case, arguably the most advanced, they made plans to power a Convair B-36 Peacemaker bomber with a reactor. Scary? Sure, but what's even more so is that they actually flew the plane, with an operationalreactor, a total of 47 times.

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(images via 1, 2)

The shielded reactor:

(image via)

While the reactor never actually powered the plane itself, plus there were huge problems to overcome, it didn’t stop the engineers fromdrawing up plans for a whole plethora of atomic planes (watch video):

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(images credit:  Allen B. Ury, 2, 3)

 A concept for a nuclear-powered X-6, derived from the Convair B-36 (left) and A Northrop concept for a nuclear-propelled bomber, refuelingtwo other aircraft:

(images via)

The XB-70 Valkyrie, "almost" the World’s First Nuclear Aircraft, more info:

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(image via)

More "exciting" concepts of nuclear planes (from the 1950s pages of Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated magazines):

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(images via)

 And of course, there was always the "Russian Answer" to American nuclear dreams: in this case it's a modified Tu-85 powered with areactor called the Tu-119:

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(image via)

What was perhaps even crazier than just powered a plane with a nuclear reactor was the idea to use that power source as a weapon. Here,for example, is a beautiful representation of the Douglas 1186 System, which was supposed to use a parasite fighter to guide the warheadto the target – and keep the poor pilot from engine's radiation.

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(image credit: X-Planes)

But the craziest of the crazy was the "Flying Crowbar." Not only was the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (to be formal), aka SLAM (to beshort), supposed to be a nuclear bomb deployment system but was also to use a nuclear ramjet drive as a weapon: roasting the groundunder it to a Geiger-clicking nightmare while leaving a mushroom-cloud parade of bombs behind it. Shuddering, by the way, would be aperfectly appropriate response. Luckily, the Crowbar never got off the drawing board:

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(images via 1, 2)

The Soviets, in a literally sky-high dream, even envisioned a new approach to flying their reactors: use a Zeppelin! Here's a nice littlepropaganda piece on their ideas for an atomic airship:

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(image via)

Atoms on Wheels

Leaving the air to the birds, other engineers had different nuclear dreams: In 1958 the Ford Motor Car Company, not satisfied with thesuccess of the Edsel, put forth the idea of bringing radiation into the American home ... or, at least, the garage, with the Nucleon: a familycar with an on-board reactor:

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(images via 1 2)

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(images via 1, 2)

Well, then, the Year 2012, or never? -

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Atoms on Rails

While some engineers played with the highways, a few looked to the rails. Though neither the United States of the Soviet Union got very far with powering a locomotive with a reactor, the USSR at least looked far enough ahead to draw up some plans:

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(image via)

 Above right image is the American concept of nuclear train: "Of all forms of land transportation, railroads offer the greatest opportunities for the efficient use of nuclear energy". There was no doubt about it in the late 1950s. Here is a German version of the Atomic Locomotive:

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(image via)

Okay, the following views are hardly accurate but think how cool it would have been to get this atomic train set for your birthday - click here.

Still other inventive types, determined to find a new use for the atom, scratched their heads and came up with quite a few interesting, if not

dubious, ways of playing with nukes – but this time of the explosive variety. Plowshare is one of the most commonly quoted of thoseoperations intended to put a smiley face in a mushroom cloud. A few of their suggested uses include what they called the Pan-Atomic Canal:

in other words, using atomic bombs to widen the Panama Canal. They also suggested using nukes for mining operations, though never really solved the problem of dealing with then-radioactive ore.

"Miss Atomic Bomb", 1957 -

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(image via)

It's ironic that -- what with the need to urgently replace our finite and global-warming fossil fuels – that many are suggesting a new look at thepower of the atom. We can only hope that we, today, can be as imaginative about it as they used to be back in the 1950s ... and a lot moreresponsible.

Love and Radiation: (Truly, "Till Death Do Us Part"?)

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The Ultimate 1950s Space Technology, which almost made it to Saturn

Obviously, "almost" is a key word here, but apparently NASA still has "small secret contingency plan division" which is dedicated topreserving "Orion" nuclear propulsion technology - and reviving it in case of a killer asteroid threat.

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(image credit:  Adrian Mann)

So what exactly is this "Project Orion" - the most radical propulsion technology for kick-ass space missions? No, it's not the NASA's futurespace capsule ("Apollo-on-steroids", some may say) - but a proposed colossal nuclear-bomb-powered rocket from 1958:

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(images by Rhys Taylor , see the full animation of "Orion" launch here)

Nuclear Propulsion: Getting More Miles Per Gallon

... or rather, giving you maximum payload per launch:

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(image credit: NASA)

The ultimate BIG technology, conceived in the 1950s to go to Saturn, Jupiter, and beyond... was powered by a row upon row of controlled,directed nuclear blasts....

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(Collection of George Dyson)

Here is a hugely entertaining talk video by George Dyson about the development and the current state of Project Orion:

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Maybe somebody is already building it, in the remote Canadian Rockies

With a mass of 1000-2000 metric tons and 1000 nuclear bombs for propulsion the medium version alone would have been a terrifyingmonster. The "super" Orion design at 8 million tons could easily be the size of a small city. Here is a size comparison of some of theproposed versions:

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(image credit: Selden)

 As a side note, we should also mention project "Aldebaran" (1962) - immense nuclear-pulse sea-launch vehicle:

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(image credit: astronautix)

 Another US Air Force project from the 1960s - Project Pluto - nuclear powered cruise missiles (SLAM):

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To the stars - one nuke at a time!

Various mission profiles for "Orion" were considered, including an ambitious interstellar version (asteroid defense and mining were amongother ideas). This called for a 40-million-ton spacecraft to be powered by the sequential release of ten million bombs, each designed toexplode roughly 60 m to the vehicle's rear.

Here are some visualizations:

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(top image by Rhys Taylor )

The Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 effectively killed the project, after $11 million had been spent on its development over nearly sevenyears. These are the screenshots from top secret video, showing the tests:

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(Collection of George Dyson)

What!? You wanna put 1000 nuclear explosions behind my back?

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So, why it's not exactly the safest way to travel? Among other obvious things:

- the ship could explode on the launch pad, or before reaching orbit, endangering whole areas on Earth.- the radiation levels for the space pilots were pretty significant.- the people in Miami looking up and seeing this ship taking off could get eye burns (which gives you an idea how bright it might be)

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(image via)

Classified... declassified... and RE-classified!

Parts of this project still seem to be classified today. George Dyson recollects: "NASA had no interest, they tried to kill the project. Thepeople who supported it were the Air Force, so they made it top secret..." It is still very dangerous and touchy subject, mostly because of theheart of the project - controlled ways to get directed energy explosions, and directing nuclear explosions at the ship.

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Unpublished documents - a set on Flickr. Tech historian George Dyson collected these papers, written a book "Project Orion", whichchronicles the project and the lives of the scientists behind it - including his father, Freeman Dyson (remember the Dyson' Sphere?).

 Arabic printing of the book, which says "Declassified" on the cover:

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(Collection of George Dyson, image via, more info)

Orion's Possible Rebirth

The leading scientists of this project were actually planning to go into space on this monster, taking their kids with them. On the surface, thisproject appears to be killed (although parts of it live on in a strange ways)...

"But hey, it does make more sense than the space shuttle, so things are looking up" , says George Dyson.

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