Get To Know Your Nukes – It’s Fun And Easy With The 2013 Monogram USA/USSR Missile Set

Monogram USA/USSR Missile Model Set Box Cover – 2013 reissue of the 1985 Cold War Edition

They’re out-of-sight and out-of-mind these days but they’re still ready to do business when called. Yes, those Cold War classics, the U.S.A./U.S.S.R. nuclear missile collections, are still as relevant today as they were in the 20th century. Perhaps you’re part of the younger set who have no Cold War experience – the olden days of paranoia, crazy ideas like bomb shelters, and all that laughable stuff like ‘duck and cover.’ Yep, today we know that there’s not much to do in ‘the event’ and who would want to survive that stuff anyway? When we hear the clarion call of enemy missiles on the way, we’ll just climb up the highest hill, get a little drunk or high or both, and watch the freaky show as we evaporate into the All.

But wouldn’t it be fun to impress your friends and/or family during those last couple of hours or minutes? You can by knowing your nukes! Learning is fun and easy with the Monogram U.S.A./U.S.S.R. Missile set! The 2013 U.S.A./U.S.S.R. Missile Set is a reissue of the 1985 Cold War edition released shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The name may have changed, but those missile classics remain in the attentive care of the Russian Federation.

1985 Monogram U.S. and U.S.S.R. Missile Display Kit Box Cover

As you build each model you’ll become familiar with the different size, shape, and look of each explosive missile. For the U.S. you get the mighty Titan II, the stylish Minuteman III, and the awesomely ironic Peacemaker, as well as the Pershing II. But that’s not all! There’s the sea-launched Polaris A3, Poseidon, and Trident. A pair of cruise missiles are also included – the ALCM (Air Launched Cruise Missile) and the sea-launched Tomahawk.

The U.S.A. Collection of Nine Nuclear Missiles

The Soviet set name classifications are a hoot. They include the US Department of Defense designations, consisting of ‘SS’ and a NATO codename. You get the massive SS-18 Satan, SS-4 Sandal, the stylish SS-13 Savage, the SS-17 Spanker, the SS-19 Stiletto, and the stubby SS-20 Saber. The sea-launched missiles include the SS-N-8 Sawfly, the SS-N-17 Snipe, and the SS-N-18 Stingray. And finally, you also get the classically designed air-launched AS-6 Kingfish.

The U.S.S.R. Collection Of Eleven Nuclear Missiles

If you’ve never worked with models before you’ll find that these missiles are fairly easy to construct with most consisting of only two halves and 45 pieces in all. Included with your kit you get a decal sheet to give those missiles an authentic touch, and a display base to show off your handiwork – this also makes for a nice quick-glance study guide.

The 2013 Monogram U.S.A./U.S.S.R. Missile Display Set Components

So there you have it! The 2013 Monogram U.S.A./U.S.S.R. Missile Display Set – The Fun Way To Get To Know Your Nukes!

The Complete 2013 Monogram USA/USSR Missile Display

Images via Scale Model News. H/T to Luis Cesar at Atompunk brasil on Facebook.

‘Now I Am Become Death…’ – 69 Years Ago Today, The Dawn Of The Atomic Age

The test site, named the White Sands Proving Ground, was built in the Jornada del Muerto (route of the dead man) desert. The good news for today is — we haven’t blown ourselves to kingdom-come just yet.

The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945:

At 05:29:21 (plus or minus 2 seconds) local time (Mountain War Time), the device exploded with an energy equivalent to around 20 kilotons of TNT (84 TJ). It left a crater of radioactive glass in the desert 10 feet (3.0 m) deep and 1,100 feet (340 m) wide. At the time of detonation, the surrounding mountains were illuminated “brighter than daytime” for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported as “being as hot as an oven” at the base camp. The observed colors of the illumination ranged from purple to green and eventually to white. The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers. The shock wave was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12.1 km) in height. After the initial euphoria of witnessing the explosion had passed, test director Kenneth Bainbridge commented to Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer, Now we are all sons of bitches. Oppenheimer later stated that, while watching the test, he was reminded of a line from the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.  — wikipedia

From Something To Nothing – The Destroyer Of Worlds

Hiroshima – Before and After The Bombing

Night And Day In Seconds

Operation Fishbowl Bluegill – image of an atomic bomb detonating at 30,000 feet, an altitude higher than Mt. Everest. (photo: Department of Energy, United States Government via: The Appendix)

…a strangely beautiful image of an atomic bomb detonating at 30,000 feet, an altitude higher than Mt. Everest. The explosion, which occurred in October of 1962, was part of a series of experimental nuclear blasts called Operation Fishbowl Bluegill.

Night And Day In Seconds: Johnston Island facility immediately prior and after detonation of an exoatmospheric nuke. 1 August 1958. (Photo: Department of Energy, United States Government via The Appendix)

To find out how the world – via The Untied Nations – reacted to this program, please visit The Appendix by clicking this link.

Imagining A Glow Of A Post-Nuclear Strike

Trinity Test Fireball – 16ms after the first ever detonation of a nuclear weapon. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

16 July 1945. Alamogordo, New Mexico. 5:29:45 a.m. – ‘The Gadget’ is detonated and the world is forever changed. The ‘atomic era’ has begun. On 6 and 9 August 1945 the United States government drop two atomic bombs above the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The horror and devastation of these two atrocities soon become known around the world. 29 August 1949 – the Soviet Union conducts their first detonation of a nuclear weapon. The Cold War is on.

In the U.S., the possible reality of nuclear annihilation struck the minds of the people. At home, at work, at school, in entertainment, etc., the society was deluged with public service announcements and emergency preparedness  geared towards surviving an atomic attack. Fortunately, that feared assault has not yet occurred – although it is still a possibility despite the fact that it is no longer quite so salient on the minds of the populace.

But what if it did occur? What would the remnants of the time look like to those future generations whose ancestors might have survived the destruction? There is an artist photographer whose work seems to capture that haunting effect. His name is Troy Paiva. He uses the moniker of ‘Lost America’ as the umbrella term for his projects.

Paiva has been drawn to urban exploration since being in his teens and he has used that interest to become the master of night photography. Utilizing natural moonlight, as well as synthetic lighting of varying kinds, he doesn’t just take photographs of his subjects – in a lot of ways, he paints them. Paiva’s works involving the abandoned west are the primary focus of this post.

Below are a few of Paiva’s photos depicting various remains of abandoned mid-twentieth-century cultural artifacts. Some of these were once considered the gems of the time – to collectors they still are. The eerie luminescence that colors these works evoke a kind of radiant glow often mentally associated with things atomic. In many ways they depict a society now long gone, and even though the decay has been brought about by abandonment, one’s imagination could be led to the thought of a more sinister destruction.

Underground Castle: Castle AFB was a Cold War era Strategic Air Command installation in central California. This is a semi-blastproof, partially underground, barracks-bunker where B52 and KC135 crews lived on 2 week shifts. On a scramble they’d run out of these tunnels to their waiting aircraft. The crews could have their aircraft in the air in 15 minutes, 24-7.

Aluminum Drizzle: How hot does it have to get for an airliner to melt? Aviation Warehouse, El Mirage, California.

Rusty Boomerangs: This Jetsons-era Googie gas station rots beside Interstate 80, just east of the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

A Chemical Hotspot: Inside the assayers office at Atolia tungsten mine, abandoned since the ’60s. Judging by the ventilated booths on the left, a dirty chemical process was done in this room.

Kitchen Witchin Hour: About 1 AM in the unlucky kitchen of a destroyed abandoned house. A mile down a lonely dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, in the Mojave.

Greyhound Scenicruiser…at the Williams Bus Yard. The unrestored inside of the bus was as hot as a sauna, and smelled like an overflowing toilet.

Kelvinator: Late-’50s Nash Metropolitan, at The Big M in Williams, California.

The Fear: Skaggs Island Naval Base. Over 100 buildings, abandoned, near Sonoma, CA.

Hope Has Left: Never to return.
Inside the Palms Motel at Salton Sea Beach. Abandoned and ravaged by vandals. Taken shortly after dusk on a sultry, hot night.

If you’re interested in seeing more of Troy Paiva’s works, you can visit his Lost America Flickr page here, or the Lost America website that features a bio, information on night photography workshops and techniques, links for purchasing books and prints, and access to Paiva’s blog, here.