Very cool news this weekend for science dorks and fans of open-source culture of any stripe: Popular Science Magazine’s web arm, , made the entire 137-year history of the magazine available in Google Books, which means you get to see magazines reproduced in their entirety. Sadly, browsing by year isn’t yet available, but we did some searching and discovered this really great article with illustrations about NORAD just before it was finished in 1967.

If you formed your entire conception of what NORAD is like on the inside from the movie War Games, you’re not alone (we did too!). But now you can go inside to learn all about the truly glorious absurdity of its gigantic springs (941 of them made of 3″ wire), its three-story buildings (windowless, of course) and, yes, its giant screen map thingies right when they were being built. Click HERE. (NOTE, if that link doesn’t work for you, click HERE and then enter “NORAD 1965″ in the search field).

More Black Mountain spin-off ear candy (which in Spanish would be taco de oreja, or: ear taco).

(NORAD by Myron Wood, Image Number: 002-3300, (c) Pikes Peak Library District. All rights reserved.)

“Man sitting at banks of control panels at NORAD headquarters. Map on wall has sign ‘USAF BMEWS MONITOR.’”