Word: minuteman
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...Polaris subs, each carrying 16 missiles), and the U.S.S.R.'s up to about 100. By mid-1963, according to revised plans and estimates, the U.S. count will be 200-250, the U.S.S.R.'s 400-500. Beginning in 1963, the U.S. hope runs, the compact, solid-fuel Minuteman missile, to be launched either from underground concrete silos or from moving railway-car platforms, will go into mass production, and the missile gap of the time will swiftly disappear...
...mountains shine, and a grumbling roar rolls across the desert. By day enormous clouds of steam-white smoke billow up in a few seconds and drift over hills and valleys. Monstrous vehicles with curious burdens lumber along the roads. All these strange goings-on mark the development of the Minuteman, the solid-fuel missile that its proponents confidently expect will ultimately replace the liquid-fuel Atlas as the U.S.'s standard ICBM...
...children. Ranch-style homes for engineers, chemists, physicists and mathematicians are spreading into the beet fields. This is only a beginning. The Air Force announced that it will soon build at Brigham City a full-scale plant to mass-produce Thiokol's mighty first-stage booster for the Minuteman. Estimated cost: $80 million. To be near the expanded operation, Thiokol's top brass last week were preparing to shut up the rocket headquarters at Huntsville, Ala. and move en masse to Ogden, 20 miles south of Brigham City...
Heat to Cure. The plants that make Minuteman boosters are also reflections of solid-fuel simplicity. There is little machine work; most of the engine's comparatively few parts come prefabricated. Biggest part of the job is filling the casing with fuel, which is a secret liquid plastic compound mixed with crystalline potassium perchlorate to supply oxygen. The mixing is done in a plant that is mostly underground. A crane running on rails sets the empty booster casing upright in a square hole. Then an odd-looking little building mounted on rails moves over each casing and carefully pours...
Like all big missiles, Minuteman is an assembly job, using components from many sources. Besides making the heavy first-stage booster, Thiokol may also get the contract for the second-stage booster. The third stage, which has yet to reach final design, will probably be made by Hercules Powder Co. at Bacchus, 15 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The guidance system, made by North American Aviation, Inc. (it recently got a $115 million contract), will be shipped in from California. Boeing Airplane Co. will put together the three stages and install the guidance system in the completed missile...