Word: warheaded
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Defense Department, it "failed to complete its full flight because of technical difficulties." Thor, on the other hand, was eminently successful. For the first time, the Air Force fired its IRBM complete: nose cone, full guidance gear-and ballast in the nose to simulate the weight of its warhead. Thor flew a little under 1,200 nautical miles, landed within less than two nautical miles of its preselected target point. Thus Thor proved to be the leading IRBM in the U.S. arsenal; indeed, its manufacturer, Douglas Aircraft, already boasts the capacity to produce Thor "at almost any rate...
Snark, winged, air-breathing and subtonic, will fly five to seven hours to target as opposed to 15 to 30 minutes for the intercontinental ballistic missiles still under development. But Snark can carry thermonuclear warhead accurately to target at 5,000 milerange. And Snark, added or not with countermeasures to confuse enemy radar, is also a highly promising decoy weapon to lure enemy defenders away from main strike forces delivering the decisive blows elsewhere...
...missile is designed to deliver a hydrogen warhead to a target 5000 miles away in a flight time of 30 minutes...
...more demanding than the anti-missile itself is development of the fully integrated and highly automatic system required-in the limited time available -to detect an ICBM on its way. track it, predict its trajectory and, at the proper instant, launch an intercept missile with nuclear or thermonuclear warhead. And what is the proper instant? When the missile is still in outer space? Or after it has slowed within the atmosphere? How will the system operate if a Hydra-headed missile rains down multiple charges or decoys? Or takes aerodynamic evasive action? Or orbits before plunging (see SCIENCE...
...advance if necessary. So if any kind of satellite makes itself objectionable to a nation that it passes over, a defending rocket can be shot up 'to meet it. A direct hit by the rocket would not be necessary. When it reaches the satellite's orbit, its warhead could explode into thousands or hundreds of thousands of tiny artificial meteors, any one of which packs enough energy to do a job on the satellite...