Word: minuteman
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Army and Navy strategists insist that what is needed is a finite deterrent, a retaliatory force designed to prevent nuclear war, not to "win" it. Enough Polaris subs lurking beneath the sea ("enough" is estimated at 30), enough Minuteman missiles riding the country on railroad trains or at the ready in underground silos, enough intermediate-range missiles scattered across Europe, say finite-deterrent backers, will convince a potential enemy that even a successful surprise assault promises terrible and intolerable retaliation. Here the relationship is between the number of U.S. missiles and the number of important Communist targets. Somewhere between...
...balance in uncertain equilibrium before they picked up the momentum of flight. This time the gleaming, 58-ft. cylinder shot straight up into the sky ahead of its lengthening tail. Three seconds after launch, its guidance system took over, turned it into the southeast. Thirty minutes later, the first Minuteman, largest solid-fueled rocket ever fired by the U.S., splashed squarely on target more than 4,000 miles down the Atlantic missile range. "Brother," murmured an awed observer, "there goes the missile...
...history, a major missile was all but operational on its initial flight test. The Air Force was so pleased with results of a series of tethered propulsion tests at Edwards Air Force Base that it decided last year to bypass the normal flight tests of components. The first Minuteman fired all three stages, put its brand new inertial guidance system, its nose cone and its flaring steering nozzles through the wringer in one bold gamble.* The stunning bull's-eye meant that the test program would be cut by months...
...fill this need, the Navy developed its submarine-launched Polaris, an intermediate range (1,200 miles) solid-fueled missile. The Air Force went to work on Minuteman, designed to be fired some 6,000 miles from bases in the continental U.S. Like Polaris. Minuteman packs a half-megaton punch (only one-third of the explosive load of the fully developed, liquid-fueled Atlas and only one-fifth of the giant warhead of the liquid Titan). Like Polaris and the Army's tactical Pershing missile, Minuteman is cheaper and far simpler to handle than its liquid-fueled predecessors, requires...
...spurt on expectations of greater defense spending. Lockheed has risen 13 points from its 1960 low of 18-despite heavy 1960 losses -and jumped five points last week on news that the Administration plans to step up the Polaris missile program. The success of last week's Minuteman missile shot helped send up Boeing, the prime contractor, and Thiokol, maker of the first-stage engine...