One might even say, without considering the enormous number of lives lost, that the world before WWII ceased to exist by the late summer 1945. Certainly the continuing development of jet engines and rocketry also contributed to it. The industrial buildout during the War was repurposed after the war. Autos had been around for 50 years, but ownership of them went through the roof (mid- to late 1950s saw the first 10 million new vehicle year; military surplus vehicles found a role in rural areas). Communications, radar, etc. Even seagoing trade benefitted.
International cooperation in the sciences during the (multi-year) IGY led to more discoveries from pure research. Failure to take advantage of Von Braun and his old pros led to launch failures and a resort to miniaturized electronics (which we’re both using right now) in order to reduce payload size on nuclear missiles.
The first H-bomb (Teller’s) was so large that new delivery systems were called for; one was the B-52, which had conventional bombing uses and was built. The million-plus pound thrust rocket engine needed was Von Braun’s project, and gave us the F-1 engine; a smaller H-bomb design went off at Bikini, and the big engine program was cancelled, but not before the engine was finished. Von Braun knew when he started that it was going to take us to the Moon. JFK’s moon speech was only possible because the F-1 already existed.
I agree with 100% of that - and in fact, we home schooled our three children, and told them constantly that WW2 was THE definitive event - that the world we live in today is the world created, or re-created, by WW2. Sure, there have been some shifts since 1945 - but WW2 was an unprecedented re-set of the globe, and there’s been nothing but small adjustments since then.
We are in year 70...in a way.
Thanks for your insightful comments. However, it’s important to remember that there were many other people who made important contributions to American rocketry. Charley Bosaart, who I knew, designed America’s first ICBM (the Atlas). You can find more details at my website. www.gpsdeclassified.com