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Rockets and Ray Guns: The Sci-Fi Science of the Cold War

Part of the Science and Fiction Book Series

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-89830-8

ISBN: 978-3-319-89829-2

Publisher: Springer International Publishing - Springer Journals

May 27, 2018

LitStream

Chapter 1The Super-Bomb

May, Andrew

Pages: 1 –39

[In which scientists discover huge amounts of energy locked up inside the atom, but insist it could never be liberated on a significant scale. Science fiction authors, on the other hand, became fascinated with the idea of atomic power and its potential to create awesome new super-weapons....
LitStream

Chapter 2Journey into Space

May, Andrew

Pages: 41 –79

[In which science fiction gives the world the idea of space travel—and the world continues to dismiss it as “science fiction” even after liquid-fuelled rockets make it a practical possibility. Coming of age at the very outset of the Cold War, such rockets were snapped up by both sides for use as...
LitStream

Chapter 3Electronic Brains

May, Andrew

Pages: 81 –107

[In which science fiction, having successfully foreseen atomic power and space travel, completely misses the third great technological revolution of the 20th century: the advent of miniaturized solid-state electronics. Instead, its predictions of sentient humanoid robots and giant, building-sized...
LitStream

Chapter 4Star Wars

May, Andrew

Pages: 109 –142

[In which the real world seeks to emulate science fiction by giving serious thought to the possibility of launching bombs, guns and missiles into orbit. That sci-fi staple, the ray gun, finally acquired a real-world counterpart in the form of the laser, and some people envisaged space-based...
LitStream

Chapter 5Mind Games

May, Andrew

Pages: 143 –166

[In which the covert fringes of the Cold War see a blurring of fact and fiction, as intelligence agencies experiment with sci-fi-sounding hypnosis machines and mind-control drugs—the success or failure of which is largely a matter of opinion. The same period also saw science fiction itself...
LitStream

Chapter 6Weird Science

May, Andrew

Pages: 167 –194

[In which that most archetypal of all sci-fi themes, the arrival of visitors from another planet, spills over into the real world—as the start of the Cold War coincides with a sudden upsurge in sightings of unidentified flying objects. Were they extraterrestrial spacecraft, top-secret spyplanes,...
LitStream

Chapter 7Future Shock

May, Andrew

Pages: 195 –214

[In which the Cold War comes to an end, somewhat sooner and less dramatically than most science fiction writers had expected. Nevertheless, SF got many things right, and by the end of the Cold War the world took the genre—with its vision of a future defined by scientific and technological...

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