Word: silos
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From a super-secret missile test base at Tyuratam, near the Aral Sea, a Soviet SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile roars from its silo, hurtling its ten warheads 5,000 miles toward a target area in the western Pacific. The heat of the rocket's blast triggers infrared sensors aboard a U.S. spy satellite 22,000 miles above Tyuratam. Within seconds, other U.S. facilities are alerted and computer-run electronic equipment on land, planes and ships locks onto the SS-18, monitoring its flight and performance...
...prospering. This year's unemployment rate is the lowest since 1974, and 95.2 million people are at work, more than ever before. The output of the nation's industries last month was a healthy 6.8% higher than a year ago. And the crops are in, a record, silo-bursting harvest -an estimated 6.8 billion bu. of corn, 8% more than the 1977 mark, and 1.8 billion bu. of both wheat and soybeans...
...where they were. But it was found that such a rail system might itself be penetrated. Another possibility is being promoted by the Defense Department. It is a kind of shell game called MAP (multiple aiming points). For each of 200 Minuteman ICBMS there would be not one underground silo but 20, of which 19 would be empty. The 200 missiles would secretly be shuttled among the 4,000 holes, making them less liable to surprise attack. But Vance, Warnke and other diplomats do not think much of the scheme, saying the Soviets would want the same thing...
...ballad which affected me most was probably that of Zahran, the hero of Denshway. Denshway was only five kilometers away and the ballad dealt with a real incident. British soldiers were shooting pigeons in Denshway, the ballad goes, when a stray bullet caused a wheat silo to catch fire. Farmers gathered and a British soldier fired at them and ran away; they ran after him and in the ensuing scuffle the British soldier died. Many people were arrested. Scaffolds were erected before sentences were passed; a number of farmers were whipped, others hanged. Zahran was the hero of the battle...
Another option would involve upgrading the accuracy of current sub-launched ballistic missiles. This could give our currently invulnerable submarines silo-busting capabilities, if this were deemed desirable...