Rogers60

Most of the movies we saw in our early grade school years were Westerns, WWII war films, or a hodgepodge of Americana. In 1951, the first outer space science fiction film, "The Day the Earth Stood Still", appeared. That is considered to this day the American Classic film of the space age. That movie was followed by a parade of more scary films. "War of the Worlds" was the scariest; a Martian flying saucer invasion. There were other films of raiders from space who got control of the brains of earthlings. The sci-fi films included the effects of Atomic Age nuclear weapon fallout creating huge spiders and insects. We were undoubtedly the first generation to be terrified by monsters and outer space invaders, more scary than potential Russian or Chinese invaders of our country.

 

Remember seeing in our grade school years, "Rocket to the Moon"? That was a film introduction to the American rockets age. It was followed by a  movie of a space ship landing on Mars. Later in the 50s, the Russians were the first to send a rocket into space, placing a satellite, Sputnik, which sent beep-beep signals, into orbit. The US government panicked, thinking the that the Cold War with Russia was turning into a more dangerous militarily powerful Soviet Union, that if they could fire rockets into space, they certainly could fire intercontinental rockets toward the US. President Eisenhower, being a career militarist, made plans to strengthen America. Having seen the autobahn of Germany, when he was the Supreme Allied Commander in World War II,  got Congress to build freeways to make it possible to more rapidly transport troops and equipment for a stronger defense. Also, since the Russians, with their development of space rocketry (with the help of captured German scientists, the Germans being the first to build rockets for war purposes, the VI and VII), Ike felt we needed to improve our knowledge of science to outsmart the Russkie-Commies, so he got Congress to pass legislation for the National Defense Student Loan, (NDSL), which was a loan to pay for half of a college tuition of students who would get a degree to teach school. I was a beneficiary of that loan. Even though I never planned on being a science teacher, choosing instead to teach social studies, all I had to do was teach 5 years and each of those 5 years deducted 10% from the tuition I had paid at Washington State University, giving me a total return of 50%. What a deal! If only Congress would offer such loans to students now days.