Word: thor
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Thor V. Jupiter...
Pending that review, the U.S. does not plan 1) any "dollars-be-damned" crash program in missile development, 2) any change from the present Army, Navy, Air Force development program in favor of a Manhattan Project sort of effort, or 3) any quick decision between the Air Force Thor and the Army Jupiter as the U.S. intermediate-range missile. At first, the McElroy review will aim at unclogging existing bottlenecks; e.g., almost certain to go is the curb on overtime pay at missile centers. At a subsequent Cabinet meeting the decision was made to unloose purse strings on rocket work...
From its launching pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Missile Test Center one morning last week, an Air Force Thor rose majestically into the air and, trailing fire, soared off smoothly on a long journey over the Atlantic. "Beautiful!" gasped a starry-eyed missile buff. But even more beautiful to the Air Force was the distance the missile traveled before plummeting into the sea: some 2.000 miles, 500 more than its nominal "intermediate range" capability, and 700 more than the first successful test Thor flew last month...
Between them, Thor's successful test shoot and Holaday's announcement took much of the menace out of Moscow's boast that Russia had tested a long-range ballistic missile, proving that "it is possible to direct missiles into any part of the world" (TIME, Sept. 9). But the Russian claim seemed to carry little imminent menace anyway after Secretary Wilson, at his last-week press conference, pointed out in passing just what it was the Russians said: not that they had a supply of inter-continental ballistic missiles, but that they had proved the possibility...
From the palmetto-dotted public beach that adjoins the launching sites, newsmen glimpsed test-firings of the 5,000-mile Navaho and the less complex Snark which superseded it, covered the first successful firing of the Air Force's Thor (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). At week's end the newsmen were standing by for the biggest bird of all, the second attempt to launch the 5,000-mile ICBM Atlas...