Word: raborn
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...early last year, after it ditched the idea of adapting the Army's bulky liquid-fuel Jupiter for shipboard use. As Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke said, the Navy needed "an IRBM with salt water in its veins." Burke picked peppery, redheaded Rear Admiral William Francis Raborn Jr., 52, to run the Polaris program, tossed Raborn a bankroll of $37 million for a start. "Red" Raborn, who moves so fast that he will only drink instant coffee (and sometimes a Scotch-and-water), rounded up a 45-man special-projects staff, set up his offices...
...breakthroughs came at an awesome rate. Raborn needed a reliable solid fuel, for liquid fuels are both too volatile and too bulky for shipboard use. Aerojet-General Corp. and Thiokol Chemical Corp. brought out solid fuels with a wallop ("as simple," says Raborn, "as the comb in your pocket"). Even so, solids presented a big problem: how to cut off burning with the split-second precision necessary if the missile is to land on target. (Liquid oxygen can be shut off mechanically with a valve.) The solution: a design called a retrorocket that automatically blasts portholes in the fuel chamber...
...Navy is giving top priority to solid-fuel shortcomings, hopes for a flight test of Polaris next summer or fall. Says Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke about Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, officer in charge of Polaris: "He is the only man in the Navy who has a blank check. All he has to do is say 'I want,' and he gets." If the faults can be whipped, even the most loyal Air Force birdmen admit that their lox systems will probably give way to solid fuels in the next round of missile development...
...week's end, the dead numbered 99, the critically injured 30, the less-seriously injured 40. Big Ben's weary captain, William Raborn, settled down with a court of inquiry to try to find...