The World of Tomorrow

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Taken in Beverly Hills in 1957, as Litton Industries tests their earliest metal space suits.

[dandyads]

Precision Radiation Instruments, 1955

Adjusted for inflation, this geiger counter that you can use to go find toxic materials would you $367 in today's money.

[humanoidhistory]

French poster for Ishiro Honda's The Mysterians, 1959. Artwork by Jacques Fourastie.

[sovietpostcards]

Sepulka - a robotic museum guide that worked in the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow. Photo by Nikolai Rakhmanov (1962).

[nobrashfestivity]

© Yamashita Kiyoshi, Sonic Rocket, 1959

[archivedeathdrive]

[ronmerchant]

CAPTAIN Z-RO (1951-1956, TV)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Flash Gordon Air Ray Gun - The Budson Company (1948)

[kekwcomics]

Italian poster for THE MYSTERIANS (Ishirō Honda, 1957)

[jareckiworld]

Cliff Rowe (1904-1989) — Man and Microscope [oil on panel, 1966]

[70sscifiart]

Wally Wood's April 1959 cover to Galaxy magazine

[goshyesvintageads]

Stephens-Adamson Manufacturing Co, 1958

[humanoidhistory]

Cover art by Ken Fagg, April 1954

[70sscifiart]

For Sci-Fi Cutaway Saturday: B. Dashkov's "What Would a Station on the Moon Look Like?" Published in Soviet magazine Technology for the Youth, 1959.

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1960 Pininfarina X concept car.

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

1964-65 Futurama GM Concepts

[chernobog13]

This ad ran in comic books and newspapers in 1959, and kids went nuts! All you had to do issued in an empty bag of Kraft marshmallows, along with a suggested name for the trainer jet, and you could win it!

At the beginning of the space race, before President Kennedy had even promised to put an American on the moon, America was space happy. So what kid could resist having their own life-sized rocket ship trainer, complete with spacesuits and helmets?

A little girl in Missouri was the lucky winner of the contest However, her parents apparently did not want this 29 feet-long ballistic missile-looking simulator taking up their driveway or backyard. The simulator was quickly donated to the girl's elementary school, but eventually made its way to the front lawn of the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

There it sat, unused and unenjoyed (Is that even a word? Who cares, I just used it in a sentence!), for several years. Finally, amid the anti-war sentiment of the late 1960s and early70s it was removed and destroyed.

Unfortunately, I did not win any of the prizes from this contest. But I tell you this: if I had won the simulator, that thing would still be in my backyard today!