Word: icbm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Guidance Problem. For advanced missiles, guidance is a more serious problem than propulsion. Two guiding systems are of obvious value for an ICBM, and both are being developed. One, under contracts with American Bosch Arma, AC Spark Plug and M.I.T., is "inertial guidance." Its heart is a subtle instrument that senses every force that acts on the flying missile, the enormous force of the rocket thrust and the delicate forces of crosswinds and yawing motions. This information goes to a computer (contracts with Burroughs and Sperry Rand) that figures out the missile's position, speed and direction...
...designers of the ICBM believe that re-entry is their worst problem. The missile must not burn up, as most natural meteors do, and it must not lose its shape. Its thermonuclear warhead must not be exploded prematurely, and it must not be so damaged that it will not explode...
...ICBM-men are confident that these problems can be licked, but they do not say just how. One possibility is to make the missile slow down as much as possible when it is in the thin upper air, where the heating effect is still moderate. When it hits thick air, it will therefore be moving more slowly and have a better chance of getting through to the target. Another method, probably the most important one, is to keep heat from penetrating more than the skin of the missile. A third possibility, exploding the warhead while many miles above the surface...
Equations of War. The ICBM is the nearest thing to an "ultimate weapon," complete with delivery system, that has ever been conceived. From U.S.-controlled territory, it could reach any part of the world, wreck the biggest city by blast and heat. Then the radioactive byproducts, drifting with the wind, could turn an area the size of many nations into a silent wilderness. An enemy's version of ICBM could do the same to any part...
...ICBM will be comparatively cheap. After the enormous development costs are paid, each missile will cost, not counting the warhead, about $1,000,000. (A B-52 bomber costs $8,000,000.) It will need few spare parts. It will not have to be flown to keep the crew in practice, thus eliminating "attrition" (crackups). Its launching site will be very cheap compared with the cost of a modern bomber base. Missiles can be dispersed widely, a few or one to each launching site. They can be hidden to a considerable extent, they are potentially mobile, they...