In Welcome to Mars, Ken Hollings details how Cold War politics, altered states of consciousness, extraterrestrial beings, postwar optimism and imagination came together in a strange maelstrom during the 1950s, foreshadowing many of the technological advances that would feed future research and innovation.
Hollings begins his examination in the late '40s with the introduction of the suburbs, as the U.S. government's investment in cheap prefab materials helped extend population centers beyond city limits. The United States Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission, two entities charged with protecting the country's burgeoning nuclear weapons stockpile, propagated "weird" science with their clandestine experiments (behavior modification, nuclear testing, psychedelic drug research). Stealth aircraft and secret weapons testing provoked stories of UFO sightings and alien contact. As science progressed, so did the American public's imagination and interest in the otherworldly. Meanwhile, pop culture--via Hollywood, television and the idyllic Main Street USA of Disney--incorporated these same themes to build a reality that reflected public concerns about current events, like fear of Martian invaders or the atom bomb.
Hollings approaches each year of the decade like a midcentury radio broadcaster, stitching together the various myths, facts and events into a brilliant cultural and scientific history. Only in the United States--with a strong adherence to Manifest Destiny and faith in e pluribus unum ("out of many, one")--could suburbia and nuclear wasteland coexist amicably in a strange, recurring feedback loop. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant