Word: warheaded
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Unrestrained Fireball. Shooting it up to the proper height is not much of a problem, but no one knows how its nuclear warhead will behave when it is exploded in the near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere. With little air to resist its expansion, the unrestrained fireball may grow to enormous size. Atomic particles and radiation that are stopped by dense air may be flung far enough to do damage at a considerable distance...
...July 3 test bomb was really exploded 22 miles above the earth, it should yield valuable information in another way too. One of the toughest problems for the designers of long-range ballistic missiles is "re-entry": i.e., how to get the missile's warhead down through the lower atmosphere at meteor speed without having it burn up like a meteor. If the July 3 test showed that a nuclear warhead achieves "good" effects on ground targets, even when exploded 20 miles above the surface, most of the re-entry problem will have been eliminated...
Bomarc (Boeing) is a supersonic, long-range antiaircraft missile launched from the ground. Boosted into the air by an Aerojet rocket motor, it flies during most of its course on two ram-jets (Marquardt Aircraft Co.). It carries a warhead whose fireball is capable of knocking out more than one bomber of an invading fleet. When in operation, the Bomarc will be stationed in sheds on likely tracks of enemy bombers. Designed to be fired at a moment's notice, it can cover several hundred miles while a manned interceptor is getting clear of the ground...
Navako (North American) still has high priority. A long-range missile, it has wings, flies in the atmosphere much more slowly than a ballistic missile in dragless space, is therefore more vulnerable to enemy attack. But it has advantages. Carrying a thermonuclear warhead, it steers by the stars. An amazing little instrument picks out a succession of stars, even in daytime, and navigates by them like a ship at sea. Unlike the ICBM, the Navaho can be instructed to zigzag and feint. When the Navaho nears its target, it can feel for the warmth of a darkened city...
...doctrine, it is tough, can stand quick transportation and quick firing from enemy-influenced territory. Tested many times from the monstrous steel tower that sticks up above the scrub palmetto of Cape Canaveral, Fla., the Redstone is a vast improvement over its ancestral V2, both in range, guidance and warhead. The Army is confident that after moderate changes it will reach to 1,500 miles. The Redstone is the reason why the Army has been given a crack at the IRBMs (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles), which have the same urgent priority as the ICBM. The Army intends to carry Redstone...