Word: warheads
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...different purposes. Some are aimed at improving existing nuclear weapons. Designers need to know accurately how much smaller a weapon can be made without loss of punch, how much of a scarce ingredient can be safely omitted, or whether the weapon can be changed in shape to fit another warhead. Most of the answers can be worked out in theory on complex computers, but the history of weapons is full of embarrassing surprises, and scientists can never be sure until the modified weapon has been exploded and its performance has been measured. New and radical kinds of nuclear explosives need...
...detect an incoming missile while it is still high in space. As soon as the missile has been "acquired," another radar (Zeus Discrimination Radar) will zero in and decide whether the approaching object is actually an enemy warhead, or a decoy, or a bit of space flotsam. If it is a warhead, the missile will be turned over to a third radar, which will track it until the time comes to shoot it down with a three-stage Nike Zeus rocket. All this will be automatic, and it will happen too quickly for human hand or brain to follow...
...engineers for developing a nuclear explosive that has yet to be tested as a weapon. Robert M. Schwartz got $15,000 from the Secretary of the Army, and Milton E. Epton and Mrs. Irving Mayer, representing her late husband, got $5,000 each for the construction of an atomic warhead light enough for the infantry's one-man Davy Crockett rocket...
...first there was good reason for the Russian lead. In 1954, when the Soviets began work on their intercontinental ballistic missiles, they needed an engine powerful enough to lift their outsize nuclear warheads. They gave top priority to that goal and developed the 800,000-lb.-thrust, liquid-fueled booster engine that has since provided the power for their spectacular out-space shots as well as their ICBMs. The U.S., with a smaller warhead, did not require such massive power, settled on the 360,000-lb.-thrust Atlas engine, still the biggest in the U.S. space arsenal...
...Force went to work on Minuteman, designed to be fired some 6,000 miles from bases in the continental U.S. Like Polaris. Minuteman packs a half-megaton punch (only one-third of the explosive load of the fully developed, liquid-fueled Atlas and only one-fifth of the giant warhead of the liquid Titan). Like Polaris and the Army's tactical Pershing missile, Minuteman is cheaper and far simpler to handle than its liquid-fueled predecessors, requires a much smaller crew. Once built and armed, it can be stored indefinitely, countdown-ready-an ideal weapon for the split-second...