Talking to my old friend Marc Thorner I got an interesting insight on legendary author Isaac Asimov: It seems that as a younger fanboy he was professing his admiration to Asimov for one of his lesser known treasures An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule which was written in 1965. Asimov then confided to my friend that it was the hardest book that he ever wrote. This is somewhat shocking given the sheer range of subject matter that Asimov tackled — every subject from Lecherous Limericks to a complete guide to the works of Shakespeare! Asimov’s reason for the difficulty? It seems that the book was very graphics intense and required a great deal of input into the illustrations. Here are two covers from this classic:

Here’s the publishers blurb on the book:

A computer in your pocket… In this book, Professor Asimov, noted scientist, teacher, and author, introduces the reader tothe delights of the slide rule. “A slide rule,” he says, “doesn’t seem as impressive as a giant electronic computer, but it has many advantages. It is small enough to put in your pocket, it need not cost more than a couple of dollars, it can’t go out of order, and, best of all, it can solve almost any numerical problem that you meet up with under ordinary circumstances. To add to all that, it is simple to operate. If you know grade-school arithmetic, you can use a slide rule, even though you may not quite see how it works!”

On this day in 1966 one of the first full length feature anime films made it to the United States: That was none other than Garibā no Uchū Ryokō (ガリバーの宇宙旅行) which was translated to Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon. The film was produced by Toei in 1965 and directed by the team of Masao Kuroda and Sanae Yamamoto, but what might make it interesting to current anime fans is that Hayao Miyazaki also worked on the film providing some uncredited writing and quite a bit of inbetween animation work. In the scene above we see young Ricky meeting Gulliver, and below is a scene featuring the Princess of the Star of Hope (who was voiced by Our Gang’s Darla Hood):

It’s interesting to note that even before 1965 Toei released a 20 minute version of this film in Japanese theaters in 1964 — so you get the sense that they’re really building up to something bigger in that era of Japanese animation. Looking at the film you can see a great deal of Disney influence, which is ironic as the mid-60s were the start of a low point for American feature length film animation. And of course on another level the film’s theme is a tip of the hat to the 1939 animated film Gulliver’s Travels by the Fleischer Brothers, who would inspire future Hayao Miyazaki projects (most notable would be the Lupin III episodes he directed in the 80s).

While you can’t buy the American translation of the film on DVD you can still find the original Japanese film on Amazon.jp. Doing my research I was also impressed to come across this vintage poster — although it doesn’t quite capture some of the nicer design elements which are found in the film:

Here’s another version of the same poster design I found on Wikipedia:

On March 23rd, 1965 the Gemini 3 launched into history — it was the first manned Gemini flight. The ship was manned by John W. Young (shown above) and Virgil I. Grissom (shown below). Grissom named the spacecraft the Molly Brown in reference to the Broadway show The Unsinkable Molly Brown as he was hoping not to duplicate his previous experience with the Liberty Bell 7. This mission was very much a test flight and this was the first time ever that an American spacecraft had a crew of two. NASA was still in catchup mode at this point as the USSR launched the Voskhod 1 in 1964 which had a crew of three.

Prior to flight astronaut John W. Young, pilot of the Gemini-Titan 3 space flight, checks over his helmet during suiting operations in the suiting trailer at Pad 16:

Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee is shown at the consoles in the Mission Control Center:

The launching of the Gemini-Titan 3:

Astronauts John W. Young (left) and Viril I. Grissom stand before microphones at Cape Kennedy’s skid strip during welcome back ceremonies for Gemini-3 crew:

Today the spacecraft is on display at within the Grissom Memorial of Spring Mill State Park, which is next to Grissom’s hometown of Mitchell, Indiana.

The Aérotrain sounds like a plot device from a steampunk novel — a rocket powered railroad car designed to travel on a monorail. This amazing retro tech project was lead by engineer Jean Bertin in France from 1965 until 1977. Sadly Bertin passed away in 1975, and his technology was passed over in favor of high speed trains that used high-powered electrical motors. Shown above is a working prototype from 1967 that was powered by Pratt & Whitney JT12 engine. Below is an early concept model which was created in 1962 which used compressed air:

While the Aérotrain looks like a bit of a historical curiosity today, it does show that France was very focused on spending serious research and development funds in the 60s which has give them a very useful high speed railway system today. This never happened in the United states because 20th Century America had a deep love affair with the automobile — starting with Robert Moses with the New York parkway system in the 30s and reaching a high point with Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System of the 50s. However I wonder with the current green movement if we’ll see a return to high speed rail over here.

If you think about it an American high speed railway system could eliminate a great deal of domestic airplane travel which consumes a great deal of fuel and is hub based anyway. Such a project could also be a very positive job creation program from the federal government. Also if we look back to France in the 60s we should be inspired to see that it might be a good idea to not just take what already exists — but put some real effort into innovation.

Maybe this might mean creating single user (or family sized) railway vehicles? Or perhaps we might see a return to something like trolley cars inside of urban settings which could replace buses. When you look at the video footage below of Mr. Bertin’s handy work from 1969 you start to realize that even though we may hit some dead ends, that it’s never too late to rethink a basic mode of transportation: