Robert W. Taylor’s 1954 novel The Junk Pusher is one of numerous mid-century drug scare books. Many of them deal in an unintentionally hilarious way with marijuana. This one, though, is about heroin, and we think Taylor is on safe ground here in saying it can be very dangerous. The cover art is by Frank Cozzarelli, who we’ve seen around these parts before. Check here.
1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe
The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.