Closing the Gap

Even for sophisticated missile watchers, the men who have marked the flight of so many of Cape Canaveral's great fire-breathing birds, last week's show was a dazzling spectacle. The blast-off was swift and sure; there was none of that heart-stopping hover of other tests when liquid-fueled monsters seemed to balance in uncertain equilibrium before they picked up the momentum of flight. This time the gleaming, 58-ft. cylinder shot straight up into the sky ahead of its lengthening tail. Three seconds after launch, its guidance system took over, turned it into the southeast. Thirty minutes later, the first Minuteman, largest solid-fueled rocket ever fired by the U.S., splashed squarely on target more than 4,000 miles down the Atlantic missile range. "Brother," murmured an awed observer, "there goes the missile gap."

One shot did not a missile make, but the enthusiasm was closer to truth than hyperbole. For the first time in history, a major missile was all but operational on its initial flight test. The Air Force was so pleased with results of a series of tethered propulsion tests at Edwards Air Force Base that it decided last year to bypass the normal flight tests of components. The first Minuteman fired all three stages, put its brand new inertial guidance system, its nose cone and its flaring steering nozzles through the wringer in one bold gamble.* The stunning bull's-eye meant that the test program would be cut by months.

Countdown-Ready. Despite inevitable delays--even last week's test was postponed twice after the countdown had come within seconds of firing--Minute-man has moved unerringly from drawing board toward operational readiness. The newest member of the Air Force missile family was born four years ago. when the nation's hopes for a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile were carried by hard-to-handle, liquid-fueled rockets still in the development stage. Even then, before such giants as Atlas and Titan were ready to go, cold war planners worried that the massive, complex installations demanded by liquid fueling made tempting hot war targets. What was needed was a smaller, mobile missile that could be easily hidden and instantly launched.

To fill this need, the Navy developed its submarine-launched Polaris, an intermediate range (1,200 miles) solid-fueled missile. The Air 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 demands of push button warfare.

Rolling Stock. By mid-1962, the Air Force expects to spot the first Minutemen in 55-missile squadrons, buried in steel and concrete silos around the U.S.

(although the first Minuteman installation, at Montana's Malmstrom Air Force Base is months behind schedule). By 1963, other Minutemen will travel in random paths across country on railroad trains--each carrying its own food, water and living quarters for Minuteman crews.

Says Lieut. General Bernard A. Schriever, Chief of Air Force Research and Development: "An enemy cannot possibly know where all, or even half, of our mobile ICBMs are going to be at a given point in time. He cannot calculate a paralyzing surprise attack."

* Major contractors: Thiokol Chemical (first stage), Aerojet General (second stage), Hercules Powder (third stage), North American Aviation's Autonetics Division (guidance), Boeing Airplane (general assembly and test).

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