A good chunk of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics is not real science or engineering but extrapolative schlock intended to excite and lure in magazine buyers anxious to read how "hero astronauts" believe NASA needs billions to build "rockets bigger than Apollo" and "establish a 5,000 man moon colony by 2000 AD."
Indeed, some of the articles accompanying illustrations in Popular Science are absolute classics of how bad their science and crystal ball was.
We see how ridiculous it can get from 1950s Pop Science articles on prominent nuclear scientists boosting nuclear bombs for widening and deepening city harbors. Or inadvertently hilarious stuff claiming that by 1965 almost every home would have a robot (with a black-faced robot in a maids uniform to illustrate), many articles on space hotels with family of 4 and the family dog all in space suits and enjoying the Zero G floating about....
And my favorite...a well-done article in the early 60s on the 1st jet packs, careful stats and science on jet history that show jet propulsion is for far more than the "jet set" in the near future. With an illustration of a squadron of "Mad Men" dressed in fedoras and 3-piece suits with briefcase in hand, flying on jet packs to Manhattan from the 'burbs.
Will Jet Packs soon make the commuter train a thing of the past?