Word: thermonuclear
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...Capabilities. The new Minuteman ICBM is a three-stage rocket, 57 ft. long, weighing 65,000 lbs., with predicted 5,500-mile range. It is designed to pack a thermonuclear warhead smaller than that of the liquid-fueled ICBM Atlas, but big enough to take out major targets. Its major components can be broken down to make shorter-range missiles; by itself the missile's third stage could make a useful tactical ballistic missile (TBM) with 500-to 1,000-mile range; its second and third stages would combine to make a 1,500-mile IRBM for use from...
...development of the atom bomb, combines two new Navy weapons: the swift, deep-swimming nuclear submarine, and the intermediate-range, shipboard-type ballistic missile, Polaris. Such a mating would permit the far-ranging nuclear subs, lying submerged offshore at vital points around the Eurasian land mass, to launch thermonuclear missiles at any target within 1,500 miles of their position, and be all but immune to counterattack...
Overzealous Polarismen, clocking this swift progress, are certain now that they have the ultimate deterrent to all-out thermonuclear war. The U.S. might as well get ready to scratch the Air Force's Strategic Air Command, they boast, since 40 Polaris subs (life span: 15-20 years), along with the necessary hardware, crews, tenders and a few extra bases, would cost only $7 billion-and that would about pay for all the deterrent the U.S. needs...
...hostile environment. This is not really true. Earth is protected by its blanket of atmosphere, to be sure, but it is a disorderly place, and unpredictable. It is full of storms and winds, of fogs and ice, of earthquakes. It is also full of people -people with thermonuclear bombs...
...cost of this effort will be high, but the stakes are even higher. Deuterium, the fuel of thermonuclear power plants, can be extracted fairly easily from any kind of water, and there is enough in five gallons of water to yield as much energy as ten tons of coal. All nations with the wit to handle the difficult thermonuclear technology will have access to virtually unlimited energy...