Word: icbm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...speed up ICBM and satellite research programs...
Along with reports that both an Atlas ICBM and a satellite-carrying Vanguard rocket will be launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. in early December, the week brought solid missile news. Items...
Considering the inefficiency of the present organization for missiles development, failures of the Vanguard type and dangerous laggings in ICBM development can only be expected. The present hydra-headed system produces innumerable delays in production and reversals of policy. A few weeks ago, for example, the President explained that the Vanguard project was a minor experiment to be conducted solely by the Navy. The Army's efforts, he continued, must be reserved for the IRBM, the Jupiter C. Shortly, if not immediately afterward, the Secretary of Defense announced that the Army and its Jupiter C rocket would join project Vanguard...
...Force (with its Wizard anti-missile project) has yet drawn complete plans or even formulated solid concepts for countering ballistic missiles. Far more demanding than the anti-missile itself is development of the fully integrated and highly automatic system required-in the limited time available -to detect an ICBM on its way. track it, predict its trajectory and, at the proper instant, launch an intercept missile with nuclear or thermonuclear warhead. And what is the proper instant? When the missile is still in outer space? Or after it has slowed within the atmosphere? How will the system operate...
...danger of such confrontation can be reduced by evasive maneuvers at hypervelocity. Instead of bulling its way to its target like a crude ICBM, a hyperspeed missile will either skip or glide. If it skips, it will climb into space about half as high as a ballistic missile of the same range. Instead of plunging down to earth, it will skip off the top of the atmosphere like a flat stone off the surface of a pond. By doing this several times, if necessary, it can reach a distant target over an unpredictable course. The glide missile is simpler...