Compelling Machinery IX: The Most Beautiful Rocket

We reach for the stars in the latest instalment of our Compelling Machinery series (previous posts can be found here). Scott Locklin on an increasingly antique achievement. Rocketry is a field which peaked in the 1960s, probably never to improve appreciably. The space shuttle? A flying brick. The attempted replacement for the ... Read More...

Compelling Machinery VIII: Soviet Interceptors

More compelling machines (previous ones in the series are here). Today Scott Locklin digs up some Cold War flying dinosaurs. Are they the most fascinating mechanical objects ever built? The Soviets solved problems differently from the West. This wasn’t just because they had different problems to solve, though there is that. Part ... Read More...

Compelling Machinery VI: The B-58 Hustler

Scott Locklin continues his irregular series on machinery that, in one way or another, is utterly compelling. Today a crazy machine from a crazy time. Aerospace technology became grotesque and beautiful in the 1950s. One of the most grotesque and beautiful creations of that bizarre era of technological excellence was the Convair ... Read More...

Compelling Machinery V: Steam Engines

Scott Locklin continues his Compelling Machinery series. It's the turn of the truly epochal and somehow tremendously appealing steam engine. Before computers, before men learned to fly, before the European empires fell apart, there was the age of steam. The age of steam lives on only in rusted hulks and remnants of ... Read More...

Compelling Machinery II: The F105

Continuing our series of aesthetic appreciations of sublime machines... My interest in the aesthetics of technology always brings me to early eras of device. In the first generation of a technology, the device physically is at its most pure and evocative. Often times, the implementation is bad, but it is rare that ... Read More...

Compelling Machinery I: The Dirigible

The first in a series of aesthetic appreciations of sublime machines. The early stages of a technology are always the most aesthetically evocative. One of the most charming inventions from the time of the dawn of human flight is the dirigible. The dirigible was invented at the last gasp of the era ... Read More...