Word: propeller
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...biggest problems afflicting space-travel specialists as well as U.S. missilemen, said Schriever, are how 1) to propel the vehicle "up to empty space with, velocity sufficient to continue inter-body space travel" and 2) then "bring it back through an atmosphere without disintegration. In each of these respects . . . the ICBM is attaining the necessary capability." The ICBM re-entry test vehicle, the Lockheed X17, has made a number of successful flights at critical speeds (which other sources place as high as 26 times the speed of sound). Moreover, "the same guidance system that enables the warhead of a ballistic...
...series of accidents propel Juanito from Naolinco, his native village, into the outside world. He becomes a fisherman, a night clerk in a hotel, a hired pistolero, and finally returns home to take over Naolinco as its all-powerful cacique, or village chief. He goes from faded canvas pants to the garish socks, yellow shoes, felt hat and necktie that for him are the power symbols of the ruling señores. Juanito kills his first man from passion, his second for self-preservation, his third and fourth from pride. Yet when a lethargic justice at last executes...
Nuclear fuel is a fine source of energy, one pound of U-235 producing as many calories as 1,500 tons of coal. A modest amount of U-235 could, so far as energy is concerned, propel a commodious space cruiser to the moon and back. But energy is not enough. A uranium-burning rocket motor would have no products of combustion to shoot out of its tail pipe, and without some massive material to jettison, the motor would have no thrust...
...scientists are not, presumably, thinking about space flight, which envisions a human crew that must not be subjected to radiation. Missiles, which are "uninhabited." should prove simpler to propel by nuclear power. With no crew, they will need no shield, and they can start on their journeys even more suddenly than artillery shells...
Knowledge of nuclear reactions has increased enormously in the last few years. Possibly AEC's scientists hope to develop an atomic explosive that exerts much of its force in one direction, as a "shaped charge" does. Such a charge might propel a missile without destroying it. The chances are, however, that the AEC rocketeers are using classified principles that laymen cannot even guess about...