Perhaps this is already well known to #historians of the #ColdWar and #nuclear #weapons, but in case it isn’t, the “teeny tiny itsy bitsy cutie pie tactical nuclear weapon” paper contains this data point:

#HistSciTech #war #military #history

On the origins of Finnish nuclear energy law. Might be of interest to #HistSciTech and #STS folks too

Space system “Shuttle,” part of USA’s nuclear attack arsenal? The story of a white elephant colloquially known as the Space Shuttle is familiar to most students of the history of technology. The shuttle was originally touted as a cheap way to access space: …

On 15 Nov 1988, 37 years ago, the #Soviet #space #shuttle #Buran made its first and only flight.

In 2013, I found an interesting piece of #history of the #ColdWar and wrote why Buran looked like a copy of the US Shuttle. (TL;DR: arms race/paranoia.) #HistSciTech

jmkorhonen.net/2013/11/18/s...

Similar widespread ignorance of #history of #technology among technologists, even of one's own field, infuriated me when I was doing engineer things in product development in the late 00's.

I saw it lead to 1) avoidable mistakes and 2) pernicious beliefs of superiority. 1/

#STS #HistSciTech

Wind Powered Factories: History (and Future) of Industrial Windmills Would it make sense to revive the industrial windmill and again convert kinetic energy directly into mechanical energy?

Considering the vastly different population densities, this is an eyebrow-raising figure:

"Germany had 18,242 windmills in 1895 ... and Finland had 20,000 windmills in 1900."

Any #histscitech or #energyhistory peeps who'd like to weigh in?

solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/10/wind...

"Manned Space Battle Cruiser- Post 2000 Era" from BDM Corp, c. 1983 report commissioned by CalTech/JPL under NASA contract. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19850024873

What the 2000s looked like during the last hurrah of Cold War's infinite defence spend / cocaine supply: a proposal for a "Post 2000 era" "Manned Space Battle Cruiser" from a c. 1983 report ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19... #HistSciTech #space

Found an open version of one of the greatest papers in the history of science, technology and innovation ever written: Ogburn and Thomas's "Are Inventions Inevitable" from 1922 (!).

It's short and well written: Do yourself a favor and read it. #HistSciTech #STS

archive.org/stream/jstor...

Joseph Weizenbaum and left wing criticism of capitalism, war, bureaucracy in Berlin in 1979/80 - one other legacy of the prominent AI scientist @ultrabeige.bsky.social hold an amazing talk about a this certain scene #digitalgeschichte #historyofcomputing #histscitech @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social