Sixty years ago this month, the March 1960 issue of Electronics Illustrated showed this nuclear blast detector to be used in critical installations. The magazine noted that such installations were well protected, as long as they were away from ground zero. But they still had to button down at the last second by closing blast doors and closing valves on ventilation equipment.

The sensors here would detect the flash of the nuclear explosion and the gamma ray burst. This would sound an alarm that would automatically seal up the base prior to the arrival of the blast wave seconds or minutes later.