Word: missilemen
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These "birds" (so the missilemen call them) are the heirs presumptive of war. They fly from New Mexico; from Point Mugu, a pleasant Navy station on the coast of Southern California; from Patrick Air Force Base in Florida; from the deck of the Navy's converted seaplane tender Norton Sound. Few ordinary citizens have ever seen them fly. Few more have heard their roar or seen their soaring sparks of light or puffs of dust on the desert. But in closely guarded factories all over the U.S., the birds are hatching. The head of one U.S. aircraft company predicts...
...fast enough. There is, in addition, a very special headache. A missile cannot be flight-tested by a human pilot who lives to make his report. Once the missile is fired, it is gone forever. It turns into junk on the desert or sinks under the sea. So the missilemen have developed other methods of testing their single-flight birds...
Brain Problem. Missilemen feel that the propulsion question is now near its solution. Modern rocket motors are already powerful enough for most practical purposes and ram-jets are coming along. Guidance is a deeper problem. It is comparatively easy to design electronic senses and brains that will enable a missile to do almost anything, but building them so they will work dependably is another matter. Many a missile has misbehaved because of the failure of a 50? electric relay. "That bird cost $100,000," the missilemen say. "It should have cost...