Word: icbms
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. has an operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), nor will either have one for two to three years. To date, the Russians are known to have test-fired as many as five ICBMs, have scored at least one hit on a target at a 3,400-mile range; the U.S. has test-fired four models of the Air Force's Convair ICBM Atlas, has scored two hits at a programed initial 500-to 600-mile range. Atlas, U.S. missilery's prime weapon (cost: about $4,000,000 apiece) is fueled with a mixture...
...time when the U.S. must have the power of instant retaliation, the weakness of the U.S.'s growing family of liquid oxygen ("lox") -and-kerosene-fueled missiles is that they cannot retaliate instantly. Time needed to fuel the Air Force's test-ICBM Atlas: a minimum 15 minutes after an hour-long countdown. Time needed to fuel the Air Force's test IRBM Thor, even using a promising but not fully tested method of "force-feeding": eight minutes. The U.S.'s lox missiles could conceivably be knocked out by the enemy before they could be fueled...
...Force Secretary James H. Douglas ventured that the Air Force's Atlas ICBM would be operational in two years, but he cast doubt on the value of his prediction by showing painful gaps in his information. Pointing to Defense Department claims that the Atlas program has been stepped up, Counsel Weisl asked Douglas whether the manufacturer, Convair, had been told to push ahead faster. Replied Douglas: "I believe so ... I cannot answer personally-of my own knowledge." (Afterwards Weisl disclosed that he had been in touch with Convair that morning and been told that the Pentagon...
...there, and that there was a feeling of deep concern. Without more ado, Ike clapped on his hat, climbed into his car, and with ten motorcycle policemen leading the way, sped to the Palais. Shortly after he arrived, 42 minutes late, he got the welcome news that the Atlas ICBM had been fired successfully...
Since 1946, missile spending has skyrocketed from $70 million to $3 billion annually. But in actual fact, the U.S. intermediate (IRBM) and intercontinental (ICBM) missile programs are still in the experimental stages. Intermediate missiles alone may cost the U.S. $7 billion; the bigger, 5,000-mile Atlas ICBM will cost $8 billion to $10 billion in the next decade or so before it is superseded by something better. And missile programs themselves will get bigger and more expensive...