Word: radars
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...than the robot brain of a missile. For the advantages of manned aircraft at whatever speed or altitude, he has only to point to the recent experiences of Astronaut John Glenn, who personally took the controls of Friendship 7 when the automatic equipment performed erratically. Even more important, if radar were to pick up signs of an attack on the U.S., an RS-70 could be sent on its way-and recalled later if the warning turned out to be false. No one can call back a missile: it goes or it stays...
McNamara also argues that the RS-70 would be useless unless equipped with target-spotting radar and target-obliterating nuclear missiles that have not yet been designed-and might never be. The proposed radar would have to scan 100,000 sq. mi. an hour while the plane was traveling at 2,000 m.p.h. at 70,000 ft. To separate two points at that height, McNamara argued, would require a radar screen 15 ft. wide and 15 ft. high. By the late '60s, McNamara feels that the job of reconnaissance could be done by advanced versions of the Samos...
Where Gadgets Fall Short. The U.S. and its allies have indeed ringed Russia with sensitive gadgets-radio and radar devices, microbarographs and seismographs recording pressure and earth waves of possible nuclear blasts, high-flying planes collecting air samples that might contain nuclear debris. Far above them have soared the U.S.'s Samos and Midas, orbiting surveillance satellites equipped with photo and infra-red detectors...
From a technical standpoint, the radar harassment was no major threat to today's sophisticated electronic gear, which allows skilled operators to ''see'' through such outmoded forms of jamming. But the West was concerned at the continual harassment. Noticeably annoyed, President Kennedy called dropping the aluminum chaff "a particularly dangerous kind of action.'' The U.S. seemed more determined than ever to fight if the Russians nudge too hard in the corridors. U.S. jet fighters, armed with Sidewinder missiles, recently have been aloft at the Western end of the Berlin air lanes, ready...
...Tinsel-like strips, similar to the shredded British-designed material called window used with great success by R.A.F. and U.S. bombers in World War II to impair the accuracy of Hitler's radar-controlled antiaircraft guns...