Cold War Archives

Aerospace & Defense

On 20 February 1959 Canada cancelled one of the most advanced aircraft on Earth, fired more than 14,000 workers the same afternoon, and cut every plane into scrap. The engineers it threw away helped put men on the Moon

There was nothing unusual about that Friday morning at the Malton plant, where some of the most advanced aircraft on Earth were taking shape....

Harry J. KazianisJuly 3, 2026

Aerospace & Defense

America’s SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 Spy Plane Was Over 90 Percent Titanium: The CIA Bought the Ore From the Soviet Union

The U-2 was sold to Eisenhower as invisible to Soviet radar. The invisibility lasted exactly zero missions. What Kelly Johnson built to replace it...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 2, 2026

Space and Technology

In 1971 a Soviet capsule landed on target, outwardly perfect — but when recovery crews opened the hatch, all three cosmonauts inside were dead, killed by a single valve.

On June 30, 1971, the Soyuz 11 capsule landed on target in Kazakhstan, ending a triumphant mission: its three cosmonauts had just completed humanity's...

Harrison KassJuly 2, 2026

Space and Technology

Voyager 1 isn’t dying because anything broke — after almost 50 years it’s simply running out of power, and NASA is shutting off its instruments one by one until the signal goes silent.

Nearly fifty years after launch, Voyager 1 is approaching the end, but not because anything is breaking. It is simply running out of electricity....

Harrison KassJuly 2, 2026

Vega Space Probe 19FortyFive Photo From Smithsonian Taken on June 30 2026

Space and Technology

In June 1985 the Soviet Union flew two balloons through the sulfuric-acid clouds of Venus, riding 150-mph winds a third of the way around the planet — the only aircraft ever flown in another world’s atmosphere until a helicopter lifted off on Mars 36 years later, and the “Soviet” triumph was secretly French-built and tracked by American dishes.

In June 1985 the Soviet Union did something that still sounds impossible: it flew two balloons through the clouds of another planet. Released into...

Harry J. KazianisJuly 2, 2026

Space Shuttle Atlantis from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Image Taken by 19FortyFive.com on 6/28/2026.

Space and Technology

The Space Shuttle was not really a spaceplane but an unpowered glider with a single shot at landing — it hit the atmosphere at 25 times the speed of sound, flew so poorly that astronauts called it a flying brick, and dropped toward the runway on a slope seven times steeper than an airliner’s, with no chance of a second try.

For all its power at launch, the Space Shuttle came home as something far humbler: an unpowered glider. Once its main engines shut down...

Brandon WeichertJune 30, 2026

Space and Technology

The Saturn V remains the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown, so violent at liftoff that its first launch shattered ceiling tiles in a control room three miles away — and more than half a century after it carried astronauts to the Moon, nothing humanity has built has matched it.

19FortyFive recently went to the Apollo/Saturn V Center at Kennedy Space Center for a firsthand look at the most powerful machine humanity has ever...

Brandon WeichertJune 30, 2026

Sturgeon-class U.S. Navy Nuclear Attack Submarine.

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

The Sturgeon-Class Submarine Fought The Cold War’s Most Secret Undersea Battles. Then The U.S. Navy Scrapped Almost All Of Them

For three decades, the Sturgeon-class submarines were the U.S. Navy's quiet Cold War hunters, trailing Soviet missile boats and tapping their undersea cables in...

Harry J. KazianisJune 29, 2026

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

The U.S. Navy Was Mocked for Buying a Destroyer With Empty Decks. It Became One of Its Best Ships, Then the Navy Sank Most of Them

In the 1970s, Congress mocked the Navy's new Spruance-class destroyers as "empty hulls", warships the size of a light cruiser that went to sea...

Harry J. KazianisJune 29, 2026

The U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Long Beach (CGN-9) underway off Oahu, Hawaii (USA), 9 May 1973. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

USS Long Beach Was The Powerhouse Nuclear Cruiser The U.S. Navy Never Repeated

USS Long Beach entered service as the world’s first nuclear-powered surface warship and sailed around the world without refueling. Decades later, the stripped, defueled...

Harry J. KazianisJune 29, 2026

19FortyFive

All posts tagged "Cold War"

Aerospace & Defense

On 20 February 1959 Canada cancelled one of the most advanced aircraft on Earth, fired more than 14,000 workers the same afternoon, and cut every plane into scrap. The engineers it threw away helped put men on the Moon

Aerospace & Defense

America’s SR-71 Blackbird Mach 3 Spy Plane Was Over 90 Percent Titanium: The CIA Bought the Ore From the Soviet Union

Space and Technology

In 1971 a Soviet capsule landed on target, outwardly perfect — but when recovery crews opened the hatch, all three cosmonauts inside were dead, killed by a single valve.

Space and Technology

Voyager 1 isn’t dying because anything broke — after almost 50 years it’s simply running out of power, and NASA is shutting off its instruments one by one until the signal goes silent.

Space and Technology

Space and Technology

Space and Technology

The Saturn V remains the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown, so violent at liftoff that its first launch shattered ceiling tiles in a control room three miles away — and more than half a century after it carried astronauts to the Moon, nothing humanity has built has matched it.

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

The Sturgeon-Class Submarine Fought The Cold War’s Most Secret Undersea Battles. Then The U.S. Navy Scrapped Almost All Of Them

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

The U.S. Navy Was Mocked for Buying a Destroyer With Empty Decks. It Became One of Its Best Ships, Then the Navy Sank Most of Them

Smart Bombs: Military, Defense and National Security

USS Long Beach Was The Powerhouse Nuclear Cruiser The U.S. Navy Never Repeated

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