Word: projects
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...painting of the U.S.'s first liquid-fuel rocket superimposed upon a plumed Chinese war rocket supposedly used by the Kin Tartars at the seige of Kaifeng (12321,* they recognize him as tomorrow's man. "Discerning, thinking leader . . . outstanding and extremely tenacious manager ... he has a big project concept" they say, adding that they "have great regard for his motivations." For Ben Schriever is a tireless, able, dedicated, imaginative officer who is respected both as an executive and as an engineer. He has learned in the wind tunnel of the America...
...that came along, frequently five or six new and unproven planes a day, all the way up to the B-17 which was then in modest production. He moved on to Wright Field's Air Corps Engineering School (mornings devoted to intricate work in the classrooms; afternoons to project work in the wind tunnel, propeller and engine test labs), and made a place and a future and a lot of friends for himself in the vanguard of the Air Corps' technological frontier force...
Schriever lost that battle, and some others. Of an early ICBM project, he said: "It had a questionable military value based on the then state of the art, so we sort of put it on the back burner." But interest in missiles was picking up, and one of the reasons was Schriever's visionary enthusiasm. Everywhere he debated and discoursed upon the values and virtues of missiles, missiles, missiles with such fervor that, according to one friendly scientist, "they thought Ben was insane...
...their mechanism on their infinitely slower way all the way to the target. The Air Force is also developing Rascal, a promising supersonic air-to-surface missile; Thor, a 1,500-mile ballistic missile; and Titan, a second design for an ICBM. The Navy has a costly but promising project to develop Polaris, a 1,500-mile ballistic missile which will carry a nuclear warhead; Navy has the concept of firing it in event of war from nuclear submarines, maybe underwater, posted off the coasts of enemy lands. The Army is developing a 1,500-mile missile...
Black Friday. The U.S.'s payoff bet is Ben Schriever's ICBM, and Schriever knows how to play for high stakes. One Friday a month, a day his staff calls Black Friday, he summons his key men into his project control room in WDD headquarters in Inglewood. This room is a massive vault whose walls, floors and ceilings are built of 6-in. concrete reinforced by steel; its treasures are guarded when the room is empty by two opaque glass hemispheres embedded in the ceiling, so sensitive that they will register an intruder's breath and sound...