Startling Stories Summer 1955 — Space Heroine Flees Alien Desert Peril

At the height of Cold War anxiety and America's space race dreams, this cover channels the era's twin obsessions: feminine daring and extraterrestrial danger. A blonde spacewoman in form-fitting green flight suit and white helmet scrambles through alien rock formations, evading needle-nosed spacecraft overhead while humanoid figures and a flying saucer lurk in the arid distance. Scattered skulls in the foreground remind readers that this frontier is lethal — adventure and death share the same alien shore.