FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1947.PDF
750 1 l MISSILES 1963 magical about making a guided missile—no dark art, jealously hidden from the lesser people of the "have-not" nations. Many schoolboys possess guided devices in the form of control-line or radio-controlled model aircraft, and it is no very difficult task to marry such techniques with those of November 5 (or those of July 4, for our American readers). But this level of achievement is still a long way from that needed to produce an effective and reliable operational weapon. It is not enough merely to make a rocket motor which works; what is required is a motor which works with absolute reliability, and with complete repeatability of performance, giving neither too much thrust nor too little and with burning time and decay curve exactly right. The same can be said of every other part of the weapon, and it all stems from protracted, exhaustive and very expensive development. When a nation proudly proclaims that its heads of state have witnessed a missile firing, or when it puts home-built hardware on public view, the reviewer must make up his mind into which category the missile falls:— 1. It may be a local derivative of a thoroughly proven and importable foreign product. It is certain, for example, that more than 20 nations have toyed with the idea of producing their own wire-guided anti-tank weapon, and even if the result bears little outward resemblance to (say) SS.10, it may well owe a great deal in critical components to the French design. A missile designed along these lines is likely to work. 2. It may be a genuine attempt to produce a workable system of truly indigenous design, and it should be possible from an exami nation of pictures to deduce how far the development has proceded. Even if a country embarked upon such a project has been able to hire men experienced from other missile programmes, such a task is formidable and time-consuming. Nevertheless we may expect in the fulness of time to find Ombo-bongoland asking for tenders for the construction of a vibration-free "clean room" for the assembly of their own inertial-quality gyro. 3. It may be a device constructed primarily, if not wholly, for its propaganda value. Assessing the missiles of the emergent nations, and those of the nations which, if not exactly emergent, have been technologically backward, is a task fraught with difficulty. It is difficult enough for a reviewer to make up his own mind, and to succeed in disregarding the claims made by the government of the nation concerned. It is doubtly hazardous to set the findings forth in print, for these nations are exceedingly touchy about such matters and would be very offended to read the unpalatable truth. But no government can "fool all of the people all of the time." Keeping Space Clean There is another aspect of general interest in the missile field which is at the moment having an appreciable effect on the US Government, Services and industry and, to an only slightly lesser extent, the corresponding sections of America's allies and friends. It all stems from the fact that most of the big US weapon systems of the new technology have already been created. Billions of dollars have been spent, half a million people have been directly employed in this work, and what comes next? Logically, space comes next. But space is rather different from mankind's feeble struggle on the surface of this planet. It is all very well to keep half a million people busy making what are only an advanced form of conventional armaments; but there is no logic or moral justification in transferring their energies to the creation of new weapon systems which will enable mankind to extend his unhappy influence into the space beyond Earth. It is a matter of the utmost importance that space should be kept free from weapons, for if this can be done there may even be grounds for hoping for eventual decay of the weapons which at present infest the Earth. Space has so far been preserved. Admittedly some space payloads have been the subject of controversy—for example the US belts of needles, the shoal of small copper dipoles used in research into FLIGHT International, 7 November 1963 global radio communications—but in general man's exploration of space shows up well in relation to his exploration of Earth. There is no jockeying for position, no passionate declaration of national rights, and no colonization or exploitation; but every attempt is being made to thrash out the difficulties which arise by means of reasoned argument and co-operative endeavour. Fortunately the present atmosphere is one in which no nation has yet felt strong enough, or egotistic enough, to face the moral condemnation of the rest of the world by becoming belligerent and grasping in this new field of endeavour. The only clouds on the horizon are that the public has no idea what military payloads have already been placed in space, and that our US contemporary Aviation Week predicts a "Reversal of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's strong opposition to development of military space systems and the possible beginnings of a major effort in this direction beginning soon enough to influence the 1964 election." To some extent this apparent good behaviour in space is fortuitous, There are really only two nations in the business, and they have yet to have any sort of head-on clash in their space operations. Again, the environment itself is at present quite enough to cope with, without deliberately introducing man-made hazards and dangers. But in the course of time men will be able to fly long missions deep into space with no greater difficulty than we now experience in flying an airline route. Then may be the testing time; and it will be instructive to mark the progress of the suggestion by President Kennedy that the USA and USSR should go to the Moon together. From Britain the US Chief Executive appears to be in a minority of one. Perhaps mankind will do better when it comes to Mars. The Reverse of the Coin If a spirit of true co-operation between all nations can be sustained it will be of lasting benefit, and moral satisfaction, to all mankind. But it will be bad for the air force generals. It will be bad for the half million Americans in the missile business, and for the thousands of firms who support them. It will be bad for a whole lot of dependents who rely for their livelihood on a big and prosperous missile industry. Co-operation will be much less important to other nations, because no other nation has so huge a missile industry (except for the Soviet Union, where a factory can apparently turn from airliners to rocking horses at the drop of a hat). We are therefore in the unfortunate position where the nation which above all others has championed the cause of liberty and peace should have a vested interest in instruments of death. This may be an unjustified conclusion, but it is what the unbiassed observer is driven to believe; and it is also being suggested through out the world, and even written in US publications. Consider the following question and answer, taken from a recent issue of Missiles and Rockets: Q. Mr Karth, you have expressed the belief that the US should do more to tie in with the emerging space programmes in Europe. Why is that ? A. I feel this is a good area for us to explore because we are suffering from persistent unemployment, excessive outflow of gold and an imbalance-of-payments problem. I am mindful that the President on quite a number of occasions has expressed deep concern about these matters. In many areas, boosters for example, where we have gone through the extremely expensive research and development phases—these are the areas we should now exploit with the friendly foreign countries. We should see if we can sell some of this great technological development. It may prevent them from developing their own and therefore lead to a fantastic future market. Although the Democrat Representative's proposal is confines to the field of space research (presumably civilian), precisely the same argument applies in the military field. The urge to increase US rocketry around the world is intensified both by the remarkable dearth of American airline transport aircraft—only two designs (727 and DC-9) since 1955, and nothing for the local-service operator apart from the Dutch-designed F-27—and by the possible effects of the nuclear-test-ban treaty. Aviation Week asks of the latter, "Will it lead, as some people think, to major disarmamem in a few years, or will it really mean a major increase in the pace o, defence technology to insure all possible safeguards against a nuclea. ambush by the Communist bloc?"
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
