Automobile Industry In The 1950s

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We know about the 1950s and the Jet Age, the development of military jets, and the transition from the props to the jets for civilian use; but how about the automobile industry and the changes they made during the 1950s after the wars? People just seemed to have more money and better cars and planes for travel, which made it necessary to make changes to keep up with the demands. Color TV was first introduced in 1954, and the Interstate Highway System started in 1956. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the interstate system; it is now just part of the American way of life. President Eisenhower considered it one of the most important achievements of his two terms in office, and historians agree.
Two big …show more content…

In the 1950s, when I left home to go to the military, I flew from Indianapolis to San Antonio, Texas, for basic training. I had a delay en route going from basic to tech school. I flew from San Antonio to Indianapolis, then to Biloxi, Mississippi, and then back to Indiana. When I left Indiana to travel to EDW, California, I took a train. Later, I went home on leave and drove a car back to EDW, then back to Indiana when I was discharged from the air force in 1959. So I had a good look at the different modes of transportation, and I was able to see the before and after, so to speak. The highway system prior to the interstate was US highways. Like the interstates, some went coast-to-coast. In fact, Indianapolis, Indiana, is known as the Crossroads of America. Why? It has US Route 31 going right through downtown from Canada to the Gulf. It also has I-65 going from Lake Michigan to the Gulf that passes through downtown Indianapolis. It also has US Route 40 going right through downtown going from coast to coast. There used to be a popular song back then Nat King Cole-(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66. I took US Route 40 to St. Louis and then US Route 66 to California, which is now I-70, I-44, and I-40.Your Kicks On) Route …show more content…

Essentially, these rockets would place the vehicle onto an exoatmospheric intercontinental ballistic missile-like trajectory and then fall away. When the vehicle reentered the atmosphere, instead of fully reentering, bleeding off its speed, and landing, the vehicle would use the lift from its wings to redirect its glide angle upward while bleeding off speed in the process. In this way, the vehicle would be “bounced” back into space again. This skip-glide method of riding Earth’s atmosphere would repeat until the speed was low enough that the pilot of the vehicle would need to pick a landing spot and glide the vehicle to a landing. This use of hypersonic atmospheric lift meant that the vehicle could greatly extend its range over a ballistic trajectory using the same