Word: thor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...balloon as high as a ten-story building, with an aluminum coat that refleets radiomagnetic waves of frequencies up to 20.000 megacycles. Its skin is only .0005 in. thick-about half as thick as the cellophane on a pack of cigarettes. Packed accordion-fashion into the nose of a Thor-Delta rocket fired from Cape Canaveral, the 136-lb. satellite was filled with sublimating powders that expanded into gas in the direct rays of the sun and caused the balloon to inflate itself in orbit...
...recent weeks by two well-circulated pictures that seemed to symbolize the terrors of the cold war. Hanging from the neck of a dapper U.S.A.F. major was a set of keys. Next to him was a picture of the lock they fit on the control board of a Thor missile emplacement. The starkly simple marking on the switch: War and Peace...
...purpose of the picture was not to frighten but to reassure. Along Britain's coast there are 20 Thor squadrons of three missiles each, the warheads of most in position. But they cannot be fired by someone pushing a button in a panic. Under the terms of a 1958 agreement, the British man the missiles while the U.S. has control of the warheads. The keys symbolize and make concrete that joint control. Actually, there are two sets of keys, one held by a U.S. officer, another by an R.A.F. officer. There are three keys in each...
...effective in the age of ballistic missiles and nuclear destruction, the Thors must be capable of nearly instant action. But to avoid a calamitous mis take, there must be every possible safeguard. The actual procedure for ordering the launching of a Thor missile has both speed and precautions...
...From the President, the order would be flashed to SAC headquarters in Omaha, which would relay it to the U.S. officer in Britain in command of U.S. warheads. From the Prime Minister, a parallel order would go to Air Marshal Sir Kenneth Cross, commander of the Thor squadrons. Air Marshal Cross would transmit the order to each Thor station. The R.A.F. officer, inserting his key in the lower slot, would start the fully automatic 15-minute countdown to nuclear...