The Andromeda Strain is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall.
It is written as a report documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona.
The Andromeda Strain appeared in the New York Times Best Seller list, establishing Michael Crichton as a genre writer.
Jackson, Ritter, and the satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against microorganisms escaping into the environment.
Wildfire is hidden in a remote area near Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas, concealed in the sub-basements of a legitimate Department of Agriculture research station.
Dr. Hall is the only scientist authorized to disarm the automatic self-destruct mechanism; he is an unmarried male and thus presumed to make the most dispassionate decisions during crisis.
The mutated Andromeda attacks the synthetic rubber door and hatch seals within the Wildfire facility, rapidly migrating toward the upper levels and the surface.
The self-destruct nuclear weapon is automatically armed when it detects the containment breach, triggering its detonation countdown to prevent the spread of the infection. As the bomb arms, the scientists realize that given Andromeda's ability to generate matter directly from energy, the organism would be able to consume the released energy and ultimately benefit from a nuclear explosion, forming a large indestructible biofilm within a day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain
''Publication date May 12, 1969''
''World Trade Center/ Construction started 1970''
Red Castle
THE END OF AKAGI
This image depicts Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo's flagship Akagi after it had been attacked at the
Battle of Midway by the SBD dive-bombers of Lieutenant Richard H. Best, USN and his two wingmen.
This painting of the doomed Akagi at the Battle of Midway was painted by the internationally respected artist John Hamilton (1919-93). The
original painting is displayed in The Pentagon in Washington, DC, and is one of a series by John Hamilton entitled "War in the Pacifc".