Word: warheaded
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...later ignominiously exploded. The failure of the missile (control-system malfunction, officials explained) was bad enough; worse, this Atlas was the first fully powered U.S.-made ICBM to be flight-tested. It carried for the first time a wedge-shaped tactical nose cone capable of carrying a hydrogen-bomb warhead, and it was powered by three engines that burned simultaneously from the moment of ignition and generated more than 350,000 Ibs. of thrust. Atlas score, so far in nine launchings: three successful limited-range (600 miles plus) flights, six midair failures...
...from the Cape, lunged hundreds of miles into the sky and 1,500 miles downrange; two hours later its nose cone was dipped out of the sea intact. It was the third nose cone to be retrieved, and, reported Army missilemen happily, it proved that the critical problem of warhead re-entry into the earth's atmosphere had been solved...
...battery, had already converted three Nikes that day: so routine was their operation that the no-danger yellow light glowed on the battery control panel. The team started its fourth and final conversion shortly after 1 p.m.-began a familiar process in which it removed a warhead, took off the old trigger and its brackets, replaced them with a new trigger and brackets. Somewhere in that process on the fourth missile there was a mishap. Suddenly the missile blew with a roar and a sky-searing pillow of orange flame from burning kerosene and nitric acid fuels. After the eight...
Fairchild is developing two other fiberglass missiles, the Gander, designed to carry a nuclear warhead, and the Osprey, which acts as a tactical reconnaissance missile and could be fitted with TV or infra-red cameras. Fairchild is also developing a new steel, aluminum and foam-plastic Armalite rifle that weighs only 6.85 lbs. (v. 9.5 lbs. for the old Garand) and serves as everything from a long-distance sniper rifle to a triple-mounted machine gun. The Air Force has designated a version of the rifle as its survival weapon, and it is being tested as a possible NATO weapon...
...nose-cone problem-how to bring a missile's warhead down through the atmosphere without too much heat damage-can be approached in very complicated or in very simple ways. A simple way that looks promising for even the fastest-falling missiles: sheathe the cone with Astrolite, a plastic made by H. I. Thompson Fiber Glass Co. of Los Angeles. Astrolite looks like the familiar brownish material used in workers' hard hats, but the fibers that reinforce the plastic are silica (quartz) instead of glass...