Word: karsch
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...bang and dug a crater 24 feet deep and 40 feet in diameter. No one was hurt, and the people of Juarez, enjoying their spring fiesta, thought the bang was part of the show. But the diplomatic repercussions were painful. The White Sands brass, covered with cold sweat, told Karsch to work out a system for riding herd on rockets...
...Karsch is more worried about the rockets that pick nearly right courses which would carry them far outside the target area. To deal with them, he has set up a system he calls a "safety screen...
...When Karsch learns that a rocket is heading out of bounds, he can send up a radio signal that cuts off the rocket's flow of fuel. This is usually enough to bring it down in a safe area. For really bad cases of rocket misbehavior, there is stronger medicine: he sends up a different signal and blows off the rocket's nose, which may force it to land near by at low velocity...
Watchful Brain. Karsch's simple safety screen has worked well, but recently he got a better gadget: an "Impact Predictor," which can tell in advance just where each rocket will hit. Two observers track the rocket with telescopes. The information from the stations is fed automatically into an electronic brain (analogue computer) which can solve complicated equations almost instantaneously...
Through its two telescopic eyes, the brain watches the rocket. Out of the brain flow figures which show accurately where the rocket will hit. Safety Director Karsch watches these figures. If they should coincide, for instance, with the position of Albuquerque, he could cut off the fuel, change the course of the rocket, and save that unsuspecting city...