Word: fueled
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...relatively new and the quite old. An Air Force photographic mission on Lookout Mountain at Los Angeles will be deactivated. Thirteen sites that had been specially constructed to launch early-model Atlas and Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles, now obsolete and replaced by new Titans plus the solid-fuel Minuteman and Polaris rockets, will be wiped out. Sixteen radar stations that are antiquated in their equipment and cannot feasibly be worked into the integrated, highly sophisticated early-warning system upon which the U.S. and Canada are spending, and will continue to spend, many millions of dollars, are to be closed down...
Fierce Fluid. A typical hybrid is a comparatively simple product of a complex science. It is basically a pressurized tank for liquid oxidizer, behind which sits a combustion chamber lined with solid fuel. The two propellants are usually hypergolic-they ignite spontaneously when they come in contact with each other. A valve permits a jet of oxidizer to squirt into the rear chamber, combustion begins, and a hot, high-temperature flame roars out of the nozzle. The oxidizer valve can be used as a throttle to reduce the thrust and the engine can be stopped and started any number...
...solid rockets the oxidizer and fuel must be mixed together intimately, a requirement that rules out many high-energy combinations that would start reacting as soon as they came in contact. Hybrids have no such difficulty. Their fuel can be hopped up with a high proportion of high-energy powdered metals or metallic hydrides, but in the absence of an oxidizer, they remain as inert as an auto tire. The oxidizer may be a fiercely reactive fluid such as OF2 (oxygen difluoride), but since it stays in its own tank until needed, it behaves itself. When the two components come...
Beautiful Flame. With so many advantages, what can be wrong with hybrids? A great deal, say their critics. Worst of all is low-combustion efficiency; the fuel and oxidizer tend to escape through the exhaust nozzle before they have reacted. They burn as a long, beautiful flame, which wastes much of its energy on empty air. When the hybrid is throttled down by partially closing the oxidizer valve, its efficiency gets worse, sometimes falling...
Looking into the future, the hybrid men see big hybrid space boosters using extremely cheap fuels: liquid oxygen and ordinary rubber. For extra performance in upper-stage rockets, they have high hopes for hybrids using fuel that is almost entirely powdered metal...