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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0089.PDF
IGHT International, 18 January 1962 PIONEER ICBM ,a» TLAS represents the most important single advance ever ^L undertaken in the U S aircraft industry: the Inter-Continental 5r^ Ballistic Missile and large space booster. Important because the vast Atlas weapon system was designed by an industry which previously knew only winged military aircraft, and is becoming operational while that industry is racked with the problems of ad justing to an entirely different "aerospace"'environment. Ironically, the success of Atlas, and subsequently other missiles, is the driving force behind this transition. The time-span from the concept of the ICBM to operational readiness has been short, considering the great burst of energy the missile created in materials, structures, propulsion, guidance, electronics, and nuclear weapon technologies. Atlas is the vehicle which showed that it was possible to hurl a nuclear warhead the so-called inter-continental distance of 5,500 nautical miles to land within two miles of a pre-chosen spot. This is its great deterrent function. And there is a brighter side, for this pioneer ICBM is serving as a valuable booster in the reach into space. Atlas is far from being the ultimate ICBM, and is equally not the optimum space booster. The overall ground and airborne system is very complex, and hence still given to temperament. But this cannot detract from the credit due to the small group of people who believed in. and pressed for, the backing to produce this remarkable vehicle, at a time when a large body of technical opinion doubted its feasibility. In the immediate post-war years, it was acceptable to I believe that the long-range guided missile was 25 years off. Never- I theless, a small engineering group's fight for funds and facilities § ultimately led to the Atlas design years later, when the "scientific" : advisers concluded the project should be pressed. Atlas was sired by the MX-774, the first ICBM research vehicle. The tale has to start with some discussion of MX-774, because there is no other point in ICBM time which is more important after the V-2 (which in the ballistic-missile art represents the | ultimate beginning). Post World War II opinion held generally that, with atomic bombs a reality, one need not bother with V-2 inspired devices, with their small payload, short range and poor :-. accuracy; the rocket art might improve, but that was a long way § off. The US Army Air Force was enchanted by the strike capability | of the B-36, which would extend its arm by several thousand miles. 1 This branch of the Army did not become independent until Sept- I ember 1947, when the US Air Force was born. Despite this conviction that strategic missiles were better suited £to science fiction than an alert, capable deterrent force with a t monopoly on atomic weapons, the Air Force was not indifferent. § At White Sands, New Mexico, the Army's operation Paper Clip 5 was busy tapping the brains of the German V-2 experts freshly =t imported from Peenemunde—hailing rockets as a logical extension r|of artillery. Aside from the visionaries, inter-service rivalry in the Snascent Air Force may have induced it to pursue an independent sr course in theoretical long-range rocketry. Early in 1946, as part of the Air-Force-sponsored studies, a group gat Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (then becoming better known as aConvair), with experience on the Navy's Lark missile, started work •on two designs both under the project number MX-774. They ^pursued two lines of thought, one a subsonic turbojet winged Umissile and the other a supersonic rocket-powered ballistic missile, •both of 5,000-mile range. In 1946 such a project was avant-garde; •in fact, it was originally intended as paper studies aimed at pro- gviding the Air Force with a set of guide-lines for the next decade in •missiles, rather than as a step to a concrete design. Parallel effort •on the two concepts stopped in December 1946, when the Air •Force cancelled the winged missile in favour of a similar Northrop •design which eventually became the now obsolete Snark. Work •continued with the rocket-powered missile until July 1, 1947, when i< too was cancelled. Temporarily the wings won; but design MX-774 bears some analysis, since it incorporated several funda mental departures from the classic V-2. Continued on page 92, after double-page drawing of Atlas 89 ATLAS AND SPACE-AGE WORKHORSE This is the story of a tremendous technical achievement. It is necessarily a very long story, and has therefore been divided into two parts. The concluding instalment will deal with flight trials, operational deployment and the role of Atlas as a space booster By IAIN PIKE Lift-off of Atlas 54D, Pad II, Cape Canaveral, June II, I960
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