Number 1828: Death from space

“Operation Satellite” is a story based on a real fear, that nuclear bombs would rain down on us from an earth-orbiting satellite. It is a combination James Bond-Mission: Impossible intrigue, well-drawn by Lou Cameron.

In real life, some U.S. military planners considered such weapons necessary, and in 1959 the United States had plans to place a military facility on the moon by 1965, with missiles pointed at earth.* Yikes! I remember the paranoia of the era. My parents considered building a bomb shelter, but decided against it. Had they built it I might have had a handy place to store and read my comic books.

The story is what I call a future-in-the-past story. It is set in 1980, now long past for us, but far enough in the future for the purposes of the story, published in Atomic War #4, 1953

*In 1967 the U.N. declared space a military-free zone. Despite that, if we knew what was really above the earth it would probably scare the pants off us, You can read about the declassified 1959 plans for “Project Horizon,” that base in “An Army Base on the Moon” from Defense Media Network.com.

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