1.
Deutsches Museum
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The museum was founded on 28 June 1903, at a meeting of the Association of German Engineers as an initiative of Oskar von Miller. Its official name is Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik and it is the largest museum in Munich. The main site of the Deutsches Museum is an island in the Isar river. The island did not have any buildings before 1772 because it was regularly flooded prior to the building of the Sylvensteinspeicher, in 1772 the Isar barracks were built on the island and, after the flooding of 1899, the buildings were rebuilt with flood protection. In 1903 the city announced that they would donate the island for the newly built Deutsches Museum. The island formerly known as Kohleninsel was then renamed Museumsinsel, in addition to the main site on the Museumsinsel, the museum has two branches in and near Munich and one in Bonn. The Flugwerft Schleißheim branch is located some 18 kilometres north of Munichs city centre close to Schleißheim Palace and it is based on the premises of one of the first military airbases in Germany founded just before World War I. The Flugwerft Schleißheim displays various interesting airplanes for which there was insufficient room at the Museumsinsel site in downtown Munich, among the more prominent exhibits is a Horten flying wing glider built in the 1940s, restored from the few surviving parts. A collection of the German constructions of VTOL planes developed in the 1950s and 1960s is unique, a range of Vietnam era fighter planes as well as Russian planes taken over from East Germany after the reunification are on display. This outstation also features a dedicated to the restoration of all types of airplanes intended for static display. The latest branch of the Deutsches Museum, located at Theresienhöhe in Munich, the branch located in Bonn was opened in 1995 and focuses on German technology, science and research after 1945. In 1883 he joined AEG and founded an office in Munich. The Frankfurt electricity exhibition in 1891 and several power plants contributed to the reputation of Oskar von Miller, in the early years, the exhibition and the collection of the Deutsches Museum were strongly influenced personally by Oskar von Miller. A few months before the 1903 meeting of the Society of German Engineers, Oskar von Miller gathered a group who supported his desire to found a science. In a showing of support this group spontaneously donated 260,000 marks to the cause, in June 1903, Prince Ludwig agreed to act as patron of the museum and the city of Munich donated Coal Island as a site for the project. In addition, exhibits began to arrive from Munich, Germany, as no dedicated museum building existed, the exhibits were displayed in the National Museum. On 12 November 1906, the exhibits at the National Museum were ceremonially opened to the public. Oskar von Miller opened the new museum on his 70th birthday,2 May 1925, from the beginning, the museum displays are backed up by documents available in a public library and archives, which are open seven days a week to ensure access to the working public
2.
Munich
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Munich is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, the Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. According to the Globalization and World Rankings Research Institute Munich is considered an alpha-world city, the name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning by the monks. It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich, Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes, black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the citys official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically. In 1918, during the German Revolution, the house of Wittelsbach, which governed Bavaria since 1180, was forced to abdicate in Munich. In the 1920s, Munich became home to political factions, among them the NSDAP. During World War II, Munich was heavily bombed and more than 50% of the entire city, the postwar period was characterised by American occupation until 1949 and a strong increase of population and economic power during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder after 1949. The city is home to corporations like BMW, Siemens, MAN, Linde, Allianz and MunichRE as well as many small. Munich is home to national and international authorities, major universities, major museums. Its numerous architectural attractions, international events, exhibitions and conferences. Munich is one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany and it is a top-ranked destination for migration and expatriate location, despite being the municipality with the highest density of population in Germany. Munich nowadays hosts more than 530,000 people of foreign background, the year 1158 is assumed to be the foundation date, which is the earliest date the city is mentioned in a document. The document was signed in Augsburg, by that time the Guelph Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, had built a bridge over the river Isar next to a settlement of Benedictine monks—this was on the Old Salt Route and a toll bridge. In 1175, Munich was officially granted city status and received fortification, in 1180, with the trial of Henry the Lion, Otto I Wittelsbach became Duke of Bavaria and Munich was handed over to the Bishop of Freising. In 1240, Munich was transferred to Otto II Wittelsbach and in 1255, Duke Louis IV, a native of Munich, was elected German king in 1314 and crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1328. He strengthened the position by granting it the salt monopoly
3.
De Havilland Propellers
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The factory had been built in only nine months as part of the governments emergency pre-war shadow-factory programme. Work on missiles began in the late 1940s, early 1950s at the Hatfield plant in facilities which had used during the war for development. By the early sixties, the company became Hawker Siddeley Dynamics which in turn became British Aerospace Dynamics, in the same year a second contract was received for the development of an infra-red homing head. When these contracts had been completed the M. o. S. awarded the company a development contract for a complete weapon system for an air-to-air missile with infra-red homing guidance. Originally under the project designation Blue Jay, later to be Firestreak, production of the Firestreak was shared between all the U. K. Woomera, Australia and Aberporth were used for test firing. The company was responsible for the Blue Streak rocket, Britains own nuclear missile. Although cancelled in 1960 as a weapon, the technology went into providing Europe with a satellite launcher. Blue Streak as first stage of the Europa rocket, it performed flawlessly with every flight, a reciprocal technical information agreement existed between the two firms. Under licence from Hamilton Standard de Havilland Propellers produced cold-air units for most types of civil, used in conjunction with a heat exchanger, the units reduced the temperature of compressor-bleed air by more than 300 deg C. Dr. Norman de Bruyne, FREng, FRS, successfully developed the use of reinforced phenol-formaldehyde resins in the manufacture of propellers for de Havillands. The attraction of this material was that, with a density of about a one half that of aluminium alloy, de Havilland Propellers Ltd. erected during 1953 in St. Albans a 24 m diameter 2-bladed Enfield-Andreau type turbine. Other components produced at the company’s Lostock works were de Havilland Comet undercarriages, Aerospace industry in the United Kingdom de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre List of aircraft propeller manufacturers
4.
Hawker Siddeley Dynamics
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Hawker Siddeley was a group of British manufacturing companies engaged in aircraft production. Hawker Siddeley combined the legacies of several British aircraft manufacturers, emerging through a series of mergers, in 1977, Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace. Hawker Siddeley also operated in other markets, such as locomotive building. The Company was once a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, at this time, Hawker Siddeley also acquired A. V. Roe & Company, Gloster Aircraft Company and Air Training Services, the constituent companies continued to produce their own aircraft designs under their own name as well as sharing manufacturing work throughout the group. During this campaign, Hurricanes outnumbered all other British fighters, combined, in 1945, the Hawker Siddeley purchased Victory Aircraft of Malton, Ontario, Canada from the Canadian government, renaming the company A. V. Roe Canada, commonly known as Avro Canada, initially a wholly owned subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley, during its operation, Avro Canada aircraft included the C102 Jetliner, CF-100 Canuck, CF-105 Arrow and VZ-9- AV Avrocar. Only the CF-100 fighter entered full-scale production, other design projects included supersonic transport passenger aircraft, a mach-2 VTOL fighter, hovercraft, a jet engine-powered tank, and the hypersonic Space Threshold Vehicle. After the cancellation of the Arrow, the company began to unravel, roe Canada was dissolved and the remaining assets were transferred to the now defunct Hawker Siddeley Canada. In 1948, the name was changed to Hawker Siddeley Group. The aircraft division would become Hawker Siddeley Aviation and the guided missile, in 1959, the aero engine business, Armstrong Siddeley was merged with that of the Bristol Aero Engines to form Bristol Siddeley. Out of this decision, came the order that all future contracts being offered had to include agreements to merge companies, in 1959, Folland Aircraft was acquired, followed by de Havilland Aircraft Company and Blackburn Aircraft in 1960. In 1963, the names of the constituent companies were dropped, in this period, the company developed the first operational, and, by far, the most successful VTOL jet aircraft, the Harrier family. This aircraft remained in production into the 1990s and remains in service, in 1957, Hawker Siddeley purchased the Brush group of companies that included Brush Electrical Machines, and Brush Traction, which manufactures electromotive equipment and railway locomotives. The Brush prototype locomotives Falcon, and the futuristic but over-weight HS4000 Kestrel, were produced there, other railway engineering assets were acquired, including Westinghouse Brake & Signal and the engine builder Mirrlees Blackstone, which came with the Brush businesses. In the early 1970s Hawker Siddeleys Canada Car and Foundry subsidiary began to build rapid transit vehicles for the North American market, later Hawker Siddeley would sell the same general design to the MBTA in Boston for their Blue and Orange Lines. 7048 cars were delivered to the Blue Line in 1978–80 and 12065 cars were delivered to the Orange Line in 1980–81, Hawker Siddeley also manufactured much of the Toronto subway systems older rolling stock, the H5 and H6 models. The heavy rail manufacturing business, based in Mississauga and Thunder Bay, MBTA also bought a number of commuter rail coaches from the German firm Messerschmitt, thereby teaming Hawker Siddeley with its old World War II rival under the same organisation
5.
Raytheon
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The Raytheon Company is a major U. S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007, Raytheon is the worlds largest producer of guided missiles. Established in 1922, the company reincorporated in 1928 and adopted its present name in 1959, the company has around 63,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues of approximately US$25 billion. More than 90% of Raytheons revenues were obtained from military contracts and, as of 2012, as of 2015, it is the third largest defense contractor in the United States by defense revenue. Raytheons headquarters moved from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Waltham, Massachusetts and its focus, which was originally on new refrigeration technology, soon shifted to electronics. The companys first product was a rectifier that was based on Charles Smiths earlier astronomical research of the star Zeta Puppis. The electron tube was christened with the name Raytheon and was used in a battery eliminator and this made it possible to convert household alternating current to direct current for radios and thus eliminate the need for expensive, short-lived batteries. In 1925, the changed its name to Raytheon Manufacturing Company and began marketing its rectifier, under the Raytheon brand name. In 1928 Raytheon merged with Q. R. S, Company, an American manufacturer of electron tubes and switches, to form the successor of the same name, Raytheon Manufacturing Company. In 1933 it diversified by acquiring Acme-Delta Company, a producer of transformers, power equipment, by the 1930s, it had already grown to become one of the worlds largest vacuum tube manufacturing companies. Within a few months of being awarded the contract, Raytheon had already begun to mass manufacture magnetron tubes for use in radar sets, at wars end in 1945 the company was responsible for about 80 percent of all magnetrons manufactured. During the war Raytheon also pioneered the production of radar systems. Raytheon ranked 71st among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts, Raytheons research on the magnetron tube revealed the potential of microwaves to cook food. In 1945, Raytheons Percy Spencer invented the microwave oven by discovering that the magnetron could rapidly heat food, in 1947, the company demonstrated the Radarange microwave oven for commercial use. In 1945, the company expanded its electronics capability through acquisitions that included the Submarine Signal Company, with its broadened capabilities, Raytheon developed the first guidance system for a missile that could intercept a flying target. In 1948, Raytheon began to manufacture guided missiles, in 1950, its Lark missile became the first such weapon to destroy a target aircraft in flight. Raytheon then received military contracts to develop the air-to-air Sparrow and ground-to-air Hawk missiles—projects that received impetus from the Korean War, in later decades, it remained a major producer of missiles, among them the Patriot antimissile missile and the air-to-air Phoenix missile. In the same year, it changed its name to Raytheon Company, in the 1950s, Raytheon began manufacturing transistors, including the CK722, priced and marketed to hobbyists
6.
Hallicrafters
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The Hallicrafters Company manufactured, marketed, and sold radio equipment, and to a lesser extent televisions and phonographs, beginning in 1932. The company was based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, william J. Halligan founded his own radio manufacturing company in Chicago in late 1932. The new company was located at 417 State Street and immediately ran into patent difficulties when RCA decided to sue them for building radio sets without an RCA patent license. An opportunity came to purchase the concern of Silver-Marshall Inc. in 1933 and, with it, by 1938, Hallicrafters was doing business in eighty-nine countries and manufactured the most popular sets in the USA. That year, the company began to produce radio transmitters, production of Ham radio gear and other items was suspended until 1945. After the war, focus was again on electronics, including radio phonographs, AM/FM receivers, clock radios. In 1952 Hallicrafters main plant in Chicago housed general offices and the factory and was a block long and its R&D divisions developed penetration aids for intercontinental ballistic missiles and participated in various other classified programs. In the words of its advertising sloganry, the supported the “America’s defense umbrella. ”In 1966 Halligan sold the company to the Northrop Corporation. Northrop ran the company until the early 1970s, but by this time, Northrop sold the company name in 1975, bringing non-military electronics production to an end. The Hallicrafters plant became Northrop Corporations Defense Systems Division at that time, the name and assets of Hallicrafters were traded over the following years, even though there were no products bearing the name. Since around 1988, the assets and rights to the Hallicrafters name. Much Hallicrafters equipment is still in use by collectors and vintage amateur radio enthusiasts. Due to the design of many tube radios of this period. Ultra Skyrider, model SX-10, able to tune what were sometimes referred to as UHF bands. Skyrider Diversity, actually two complete multi-tube receivers side-by-side and this enabled the operator to connect two different antennas to the set and counteract the effects of fading. A huge set and today, one of the most sought-after models, hT-4 Transmitter, an efficient high-performance transmitter for the Ham bands, later to become famous in World War II as the BC-610. It was sold well into the late 1940s, Skyrider 23, model SX-23, famous for its innovative art-deco cabinet design. Super Skyrider SX-28, and SX-28A, one of the most popular Hallicrafters receivers and its design was state of the art for the time, and featured excellent external styling
7.
Woomera Test Range
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The RAAF Woomera Test Range is a weapons testing range operated by the Royal Australian Air Force Air Warfare Centre. The day-to-day operation and administration of the WTR is the responsibility of Headquarters, RAAF Woomera Test Range, the range facility is located in South Australia, in that States north-west pastoral region. The gateway to the Range is the Defence support base Woomera long referred to as Woomera Village, Woomera is located approximately 500 kilometres north-west of Adelaide. The Range, however, covers an area, and is the largest land-based weapons test facility in the western world. The range complex is made up of the Woomera Prohibited Area, the Woomera Restricted Airspace, the village of Woomera, RAAF Woomera Airfield, and Camp Rapier. The nearby Nurrungar Test Area Woomera, which was the site of the USAF/ADF Joint Defense Facility Nurrungar, is now also part of the wider Woomera Test Range complex. Woomera village has a population of 150 to 200 people. Although the range is closed to the public, Woomera village is open to the public, the groundspace of the range is known as the Woomera Prohibited Area and measures 122,188 km2. It was first declared an area in 1947. Access is managed by the Department of Defence Woomera Prohibited Area Coordination Office using a permit system, modern mines within the area include the Challenger gold mine, Peculiar Knob iron ore mine, Prominent Hill copper mine and the Cairn Hill iron ore mine. As of 2016, only Challenger is operational, Peculiar Knob is in care and maintenance owing to a weak iron ore price, while ore bodies at Prominent Hill and Cairn Hill have been exhausted. As of 2016, WPA Advisory Board membership includes, Minutes of the Board from 2012–2016 were partially released following a Freedom of Information request in 2016, approximately 65,000 tourists a year visit Woomera, with about half of that number going on to visit Roxby Downs. Germanys use of V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets during World War II prompted the British to establish their own rocket testing programme. However, the density of population in the United Kingdom made testing risky, so the British turned to Australia, the two nations joined in the Anglo-Australian Joint Project, a Commonwealth weapons design and test programme established in 1946. One of the Survey Corps members who commenced work there in 1947 was Len Beadell, the name of the facility, and the village of Woomera, came from the Aboriginal spear-throwing device. At its peak, the range had an area of 270,000 square kilometres, most of which was in South Australia and this was later scaled back to a total area of 127,000 square kilometres, still the largest land-based weapons test range in the western world. Facilities at Salisbury, South Australia supported the design and testing of many weapons, the Joint Project ran until 1980. Woomera then focused on supporting the nearby joint Australia-United States Joint Defence Space Communications Station, as of the end of 2009, there were up to ten different tests occurring on the range daily, and bookings for access had been made as far in advance as 2023
8.
Guiana Space Centre
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The Guiana Space Centre or, more commonly, Centre Spatial Guyanais is a French and European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana. The European Space Agency, the French space agency CNES, and this was the spaceport used by the ESA to send supplies to the International Space Station using the Automated Transfer Vehicle. The location was selected in 1964 to become the spaceport of France, in 1975, France offered to share Kourou with ESA. Commercial launches are bought also by non-European companies, ESA pays two thirds of the spaceports annual budget and has also financed the upgrades made during the development of the Ariane launchers. Since April 4,2017, the centre has been occupied by 30 labor union leaders in the midst of the 2017 social unrest in French Guiana, Kourou is located approximately 500 kilometres north of the equator, at a latitude of 5°10. The near-equatorial launch location provides an advantage for launches to low-inclination Earth orbits compared to launches from spaceports at higher latitude, the proximity to the equator also makes maneuvering satellites for geosynchronous orbits simpler and less costly. Originally built in the 1960s under the name of CECLES, the ELV pad located at 5. 236°N52. 775°W /5.236, one Europa-II was launched from the site, before the programme was cancelled. The pad was demolished, and subsequently rebuilt as the first launch complex for Ariane rockets, renamed ELA, it was used for Ariane 1 and Ariane 2 and 3 launches until being retired in 1989. It was again refurbished for the Vega with the first launch performed on 13 February 2012, the ELA2 pad, located at 5. 232°N52. 776°W /5.232, -52.776 had been used for Ariane 4 launches until 2003. ELA3 has been active for Ariane 5 launches since 1996 and this facility is located at 5. 239°N52. 768°W /5.239, -52.768 and covers an area of 21 square kilometres. ESA has built ELS at 5. 305°N52. 834°W /5.305, the first Soyuz launch from ELS was postponed several times, but launched on October 21,2011. ELS is located on the territory of Sinnamary commune,27 km from Kourou harbor and it is 10 km north of the site used for the Ariane 5 launches. Russia will use the Guiana Space Centre in addition to Baikonur Cosmodrome, the Guiana location has the significant benefit of greatly increased payload capability, owing to the near equatorial position. A Soyuz rocket with a 1.7 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit performance from Baikonur, the ELS project is being co-funded by Arianespace, ESA, and the European Union, with CNES being the prime contractor. The project has a projected cost of approximately €320 million, where €120 million are allocated for modernizing the Soyuz vehicle, the official opening of the launch site construction occurred on 27 February 2007. Excavation work however, had begun several months beforehand. By October 2010,18 launch contracts had been signed, Arianespace has ordered 24 launchers from Russian industry. On October 21,2011, two Galileo IOV-1 & IOV-2 satellites were launched using a Soyuz-ST rocket, in the first Russian Soyuz vehicle ever launched from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana, astrium assembles each Ariane 5 launcher in the Launcher Integration Building
9.
Europa (rocket)
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The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation, which was the precursor to the European Space Agency and its Ariane family of launchers. Europa was built to develop space technology and put European-wide telecommunication. The rocket primarily consisted of Blue Streak, Coralie, and Astris rocket stages, the British Blue Streak ballistic missile was cancelled in 1960, when it was realised it could not compete with the types of missile that the Americans or Russians were building. As part of deciding how to implement Blue Streak inconspicuously, the British inadvertently arrived at the concept of the launch facility. The difficult storage of oxygen in the rocket stalled the introduction of Blue Streak. The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough was given the job of considering how the missile could be adapted as a launching vehicle. A possible Anglo-French collaboration was looked at, and ELDO was signed on 16 April 1962, the three-stage design was arrived at, and given the name Eldo A, later named Europa. It would still use the Blue Streak as the first stage, ELDO later disagreed, but the French would get their way, as Eldo B would become Ariane, first launching in 1979. The programme was initiated by the UK and the first launch was planned for November 1966, by April 1966, estimated costs had increased to £150 million, from an initial estimated of £70 million. Hopes were not high that it would be suitable for the job, the Italians wanted to give up on ELDO and go for a single European space organisation, not divided nationally as ELDO. Britain was contributing 40% of the costs, in early June 1966, the British government decided it could not afford the cost, and wanted to leave the ELDO organisation - one of the few European organisations in which it was a lead player. This was also at a time when technology was about to change the world. But geosynchronous satellites would need to be 22,000 miles above Earth, Britains contribution was reduced to 27%. In mid-November 1968, a European Space Conference in Bonn decided on a proposal to merge ELDO with ESRO to form a pan-European space authority by early 1970, Britain was lukewarm to the idea, because it did not believe Europe could launch satellites economically. Although only on paper, Britains involvement in the project was much reduced, however all of the launchers, to the very end, were completely dependent on the British rocket in the first stage. In 1970 the project was under an economic threat from Americas offer to fly satellites for foreign powers on a reimbursable basis. That agreement had been signed between ESRO and NASA on 30 December 1966 and by 1970 it was becoming clear that the advantage in having a national launch vehicle was insufficient to justify the cost. In 1972 NASA approved development of the Shuttle which many perceived would offer savings in having satellites launched on this system
10.
Satellite
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In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earths Moon. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the worlds first artificial satellite, since then, about 6,600 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2013 estimate,3,600 remained in orbit, of those, about 1,000 were operational, the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 500 operational satellites are in orbit,50 are in medium-Earth orbit. A few large satellites have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit. Over a dozen space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, a few asteroids, Satellites are used for many purposes. Common types include military and civilian Earth observation satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, well-known classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit. A launch vehicle is a rocket that throws a satellite into orbit, usually it lifts off from a launch pad on land. Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, Satellites are usually semi-independent computer-controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control, the first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon. The idea surfaced again in Jules Vernes The Begums Fortune, in 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published Exploring Space Using Jet Propulsion Devices, which is the first academic treatise on the use of rocketry to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed required for a minimal orbit. In 1928, Herman Potočnik published his book, The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for observation of the ground, in a 1945 Wireless World article, the English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet, the first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer. This in turn triggered the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, Sputnik 1 helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers through measurement of its orbital change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere
11.
Launch vehicle
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In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from Earths surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad, Earth orbital launch vehicles typically have at least two stages, and sometimes as many as four or more. Expendable launch vehicles are designed for one-time use and they usually separate from their payload and disintegrate during atmospheric reentry. In contrast, reusable vehicles are designed to be recovered intact. The Space Shuttle was a part of a vehicle with components used for multiple orbital spaceflights. SpaceX has developed a rocket launching system to successfully bring back a part—the first stage—of their Falcon 9. A fully reusable VTVL design is planned for all parts of the ITS launch vehicle, Launch vehicles are often classified by the amount of mass they can carry into orbit. For example, a Proton rocket can lift 22,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, Launch vehicles are also characterized by their number of stages. Rockets with as many as five stages have been successfully launched, additionally, launch vehicles are very often supplied with boosters supplying high early thrust, normally burning with other engines. Boosters allow the engines to be smaller, reducing the burnout mass of later stages to allow larger payloads. Other frequently reported characteristics of vehicles are the launching nation or space agency. For example, the European Space Agency is responsible for the Ariane V, many launch vehicles are considered part of a historical line of vehicles of same or similar name, e. g. the Atlas V is the latest Atlas rocket. A small-lift launch vehicle is capable of lifting up to 2,000 kg of payload into low Earth orbit, a medium-lift launch vehicle is capable of lifting 2,000 to 20,000 kg of payload into LEO. A heavy-lift launch vehicle is capable of lifting 20,000 to 50,000 kg of payload into LEO, a super-heavy lift vehicle is capable of lifting more than 50,000 kg of payload into LEO. It refers to its 1,500 kg to LEO Vega launch vehicle as light lift, sounding rockets have long been used for brief, inexpensive unmanned space and microgravity experiments. Current human-rated suborbital launch vehicles include SpaceShipOne and the upcoming SpaceShipTwo, minimizing air drag requires a reasonably high ballistic coefficient, a ratio of length to diameter greater than ten. This generally results in a vehicle that is at least 20 m long. Leaving the atmosphere as early on in the flight as possible provides a velocity loss due to air drag of around 300 m/s, Launch vehicles of sufficient size are capable of launching payloads smaller than their orbital capability, to the Moon or beyond
12.
Nuclear deterrent
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Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends, in addition to the actual use of nuclear weapons whether in the battlefield or strategically, a large part of nuclear strategy involves their use as a bargaining tool. Some of the issues considered within nuclear strategy include, Under what conditions does it serve a nations interest to nuclear weapons. What types of weapons should be developed. When and how should such weapons be used, many strategists argue that nuclear strategy differs from other forms of military strategy. The immense and terrifying power of the weapons makes their use, in seeking victory in a military sense. Perhaps counterintuitively, an important focus of nuclear strategy has been determining how to prevent and deter their use, in the context of nuclear proliferation and maintaining the balance of power, states also seek to prevent other states from acquiring nuclear weapons as part of nuclear strategy. The doctrine of mutual assured destruction assumes that a nuclear deterrent force must be credible and survivable and that is, each deterrent force must survive a first strike with sufficient capability to effectively destroy the other country in a second strike. Therefore, a first strike would be suicidal for the launching country, in the late 1940s and 1950s as the Cold War developed, the United States and Soviet Union pursued multiple delivery methods and platforms to deliver nuclear weapons. Three types of platforms proved most successful and are called a nuclear triad. These are air-delivered weapons, ballistic missile submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles, although not considered part of the deterrent forces, all of the nuclear powers deployed large numbers of tactical nuclear weapons in the Cold War. These could be delivered by virtually all platforms capable of delivering large conventional weapons, during the 1970s there was growing concern that the combined conventional forces of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact could overwhelm the forces of NATO. It seemed unthinkable to respond to a Soviet/Warsaw Pact incursion into Western Europe with strategic nuclear weapons, thus, technologies were developed to greatly reduce collateral damage while being effective against advancing conventional military forces. Other technologies were so-called “suppressed radiation devices, ” which produced mostly blast with little radioactivity, making them much like conventional explosives, strangelove, a film satirizing nuclear strategy. Dunn, Lewis A. dead link]Deterrence Today – Roles, Challenges, New Haven, Yale University Press,1966. The Arms Dynamic in World Politics, New York, St. Martins Press,1989. NATO, Britain, France and the FRG, Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000, Strategies and Belief Systems in Britain, France and the FRG, 277p. A Comparison of NATO and WTO War Aims and Strategies, Contemporary European History Vol.7 Part 3, Warsaw Pact Military Doctrines in the 70s and 80s, Findings in the East German Archives, Comparative Strategy Vol.12 No
13.
V bomber
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The strategic bombers, whose names all started with the letter V and which were known collectively as the V-class, were the Vickers Valiant, Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor. The V-Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964, with 50 Valiants,70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service, for long-range operations, aerial refueling tanker variants of each were developed. When it became clear that Soviet surface-to-air missiles could successfully bring down high flying aircraft, as a result, the Valiants were removed from service after problems with fatigue in their wings became apparent, a planned low-level variant of the Valiant did not progress beyond the prototype. The Valiants had been used during the Suez Crisis as conventional bombers, Victors had been deployed to the Malay Archipelago as a deterrent during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation but were not used in missions. Usage of all V bombers as weapons platforms, nuclear or conventional, RAF Bomber Command ended the Second World War with a policy of using heavy four-piston-engined bombers for massed raids and remained committed to this policy in the immediate post-war period. The RAF adopted the Avro Lincoln, a version of the Lancaster. In November 1944, the UK Chiefs of Staff had requested a report from Sir Henry Tizard on potential future means of warfare. Reporting without knowledge of the Allied effort to produce an atomic bomb and it foresaw the devastating effects of atomic weapons and envisaged high-flying jet bombers cruising at 500 mph at 40,000 ft. It was thought that potential aggressors may be deterred by the knowledge that Britain would retaliate with atomic weapons if attacked, massed bombers were unnecessary if a single bomber could destroy an entire city or military installation with a nuclear weapon. It would have to be a bomber, since the first generation of nuclear weapons were big. Such a large and advanced bomber would be expensive on a unit basis, the arrival of the Cold War also emphasised to British military planners the need to modernise UK forces. S. The RAFs then-current jet bomber the English Electric Canberra, introduced in May 1951 and designed during the war and this request went to most of the United Kingdoms major aircraft manufacturers. A third design was put forward by Shorts, based on the work of Geoffrey T. R. Hill, work on the Victor began in November 1947 and the Vulcan in January 1948. In August 1947 Short Brothers received a contract for the Short Sperrin SA.4 based on the earlier less-stringent Specification B. 14/46, the Sperrin was cancelled in late 1949, but work on the three V bombers continued. While more expensive than the American approach of building one bomber design per category, the three V-bombers were so called because of being given names starting with the letter V. During World War II, Churchill had popularized the V-sign as a symbol for victory over the axis powers, the Valiant went into production as the first V-bomber in 1955. 83, at RAF Waddington in May 1957, the American weapons supplied under Project E were not available for the RAF to use as part of the UKs national nuclear deterrent, only British-owned weapons could be used for that purpose. Although often referred-to as part of the V-force, the Valiants were actually assigned to SACEUR as part of the TBF, although remaining nominally part of Bomber Command
14.
Pre-emptive strike
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It is a war that preemptively breaks the peace. The term preemptive war is sometimes confused with the preventive war. The difference is that a war is launched to destroy the potential threat of the targeted party. A preemptive war is launched in anticipation of immediate aggression by another party, most contemporary scholarship equates preventive war with aggression, and therefore argues that it is illegitimate. The waging of a war has less stigma attached than does the waging of a preventive war. As early as 1625, Hugo Grotius characterized a states right of self-defense to include the right to forestall an attack forcibly, in 1685, the Scottish government conducted a preemptive strike against the Clan Campbell, called the Argyll Whigs. The United States rejected the legal ground of the Caroline case, in 1842, US Secretary of State Daniel Webster said that the necessity for forcible reaction must be instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. That formulation is part of the Caroline test, which is cited as enshrining the appropriate customary law standard. Austro-Hungarian Chief of the General Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf argued for a war against Serbia in 1913. Serbia had the image of an aggressive and expansionist power and was seen as a threat to Austria-Hungary in Bosnia, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand justified Austria-Hungary to attack, leading to World War I. During the course of the destructive and costly World War I, for the first time in history, as a further expression of that hope, upon the conclusion of the war, the League of Nations was formed. Its primary aim was to prevent war, as all signatories were required to agree to desist from the initiation of all wars, all of the victorious nations emerging out of World War I eventually signed the agreement, with the notable exception of the United States. During the 1920s, the League peaceably settled numerous international disputes and it was only in the 1930s that its effectiveness in preventing wars began to come into question. Such questions began to arise when it first became apparent in 1931 that it was incapable of halting aggression by Japan in Manchuria, in the Mukden Incident, Japan claimed to be fighting a defensive war in Manchuria, attempting to preempt supposedly aggressive Chinese intentions towards the Japanese. According to the Japanese, the Chinese had started the war by blowing up a line near Mukden. Therefore, the Chinese were the aggressors, and the Japanese were merely defending themselves, a predominance of evidence has since indicated that the railway had in fact most probably been blown up by Japanese operatives. In 1933, the impotency of the League became more pronounced when notices were provided by Japan, italy shortly followed suit and exited the League in 1937. The perceived impotency of the League was a factor which eventually led to the full outbreak of World War II in 1939
15.
GAM-87 Skybolt
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The Douglas GAM-87 Skybolt was an air-launched ballistic missile, equipped with a thermonuclear warhead, developed by the United States during the late 1950s. The UK joined the program in 1960, intending to use it on their V bomber force, a series of test failures and the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles eventually led to its cancellation in December 1962. The UK had decided to base its entire 1960s deterrent force on Skybolt and this was resolved during a series of meetings that led to the Royal Navy gaining the UGM-27 Polaris missile and construction of the Resolution-class submarines to launch them. Nuclear weapons theorists had speculated about how to integrate the flexibility of the bomber with the invulnerability of the ballistic missile. The introduction of useful surface-to-air missiles in the 1950s rendered flight over enemy territory much more dangerous and had reduced the effective deterrent power of a bomber force. Yet the Air Force and military planners were, in the mid-1950s, after launch, missiles were no longer under positive control, could not be recalled or redirected, and would reach their targets within a matter of minutes after the order to fire. Bombers, in comparison, could be re-directed in flight, furthermore, the missiles of the day were all required to be loaded with their fuels immediately prior to launch, and they could only be launched from above ground after long pre-launch checkouts. This made them vulnerable to attack from the air while they prepared – the first American ICBMs, Atlas 1, in contrast, a bomber could be ordered into the air long in advance of an attack, rendering them effectively invulnerable to attack while they loitered awaiting orders. With aerial refuelling, the times were on the order of one day if need be. In addition, the inaccuracy of missiles in the 1950s made them useless as precision strike weapons, initially, Western ballistic missiles could not reach such targets, which were located deep inside the Sino-Soviet land mass in Asia. Therefore, the integration of aircraft with the invulnerability of the ballistic missile was an intriguing prospect to 1950s military planners. Basing the strike package on aircraft offered a flexibility that missiles could not match, for instance, the bombers could stand off from the targets and wait for instructions from secure command centers to attack targets that were missed in an initial strike. Additionally, the bombers could use weapons to strike known air defenses. Secondly, and most importantly, this mode of deployment meant that the force was rendered almost invulnerable. The bombers could fly to staging areas well outside the range of even the longest-legged defenses and this allowed for gradual escalation and a possible backing down through diplomacy. A ground-based missile cannot be used in the fashion, it is either launched or not. If threatened with a strike, this presents their owners with the use them or lose them predicament. For the British, their dilemma was a matter of geography, no fixed land-based missile system could be credibly installed in the British Isles, they were well within the range of Soviet air strikes
16.
Europa rocket
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The Europa rocket was an early expendable launch system of the European Launcher Development Organisation, which was the precursor to the European Space Agency and its Ariane family of launchers. Europa was built to develop space technology and put European-wide telecommunication. The rocket primarily consisted of Blue Streak, Coralie, and Astris rocket stages, the British Blue Streak ballistic missile was cancelled in 1960, when it was realised it could not compete with the types of missile that the Americans or Russians were building. As part of deciding how to implement Blue Streak inconspicuously, the British inadvertently arrived at the concept of the launch facility. The difficult storage of oxygen in the rocket stalled the introduction of Blue Streak. The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough was given the job of considering how the missile could be adapted as a launching vehicle. A possible Anglo-French collaboration was looked at, and ELDO was signed on 16 April 1962, the three-stage design was arrived at, and given the name Eldo A, later named Europa. It would still use the Blue Streak as the first stage, ELDO later disagreed, but the French would get their way, as Eldo B would become Ariane, first launching in 1979. The programme was initiated by the UK and the first launch was planned for November 1966, by April 1966, estimated costs had increased to £150 million, from an initial estimated of £70 million. Hopes were not high that it would be suitable for the job, the Italians wanted to give up on ELDO and go for a single European space organisation, not divided nationally as ELDO. Britain was contributing 40% of the costs, in early June 1966, the British government decided it could not afford the cost, and wanted to leave the ELDO organisation - one of the few European organisations in which it was a lead player. This was also at a time when technology was about to change the world. But geosynchronous satellites would need to be 22,000 miles above Earth, Britains contribution was reduced to 27%. In mid-November 1968, a European Space Conference in Bonn decided on a proposal to merge ELDO with ESRO to form a pan-European space authority by early 1970, Britain was lukewarm to the idea, because it did not believe Europe could launch satellites economically. Although only on paper, Britains involvement in the project was much reduced, however all of the launchers, to the very end, were completely dependent on the British rocket in the first stage. In 1970 the project was under an economic threat from Americas offer to fly satellites for foreign powers on a reimbursable basis. That agreement had been signed between ESRO and NASA on 30 December 1966 and by 1970 it was becoming clear that the advantage in having a national launch vehicle was insufficient to justify the cost. In 1972 NASA approved development of the Shuttle which many perceived would offer savings in having satellites launched on this system
17.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
18.
Nuclear weapon
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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from small amounts of matter. The first test of a bomb released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10 million tons of TNT, a thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate a city by blast, fire. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of destruction, and their use. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in nuclear warfare, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II, the bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. The ethics of the bombings and their role in Japans surrender remain the subject of scholarly, since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for the purposes of testing and demonstration. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them, israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons, though in a policy of deliberate ambiguity, it does not acknowledge having them. Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands are nuclear weapons sharing states, south Africa is the only country to have independently developed and then renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons. Modernisation of weapons continues to occur, all existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as bombs or atom bombs. This has long noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom. The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT, all fission reactions necessarily generate fission products, the radioactive remains of the atomic nuclei split by the fission reactions. Many fission products are highly radioactive or moderately radioactive. Fission products are the radioactive component of nuclear fallout
19.
Free-fall bomb
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This described all aircraft bombs in general service until the latter half of World War II, and the vast majority until the late 1980s. Then, with the increased use of precision-guided munitions, a retronym was needed to separate smart bombs from free-fall bombs. Dumb bomb was used for a time, but many military circles felt it sounded too trite, previously, they were also referred to as iron bombs. Unguided bombs typically use a contact fuse for detonation upon impact, one alternative is a fuse with an altimeter, to cause an air burst at the desired altitude. The retarded bomb uses a method of creating increased aerodynamic drag, such as a parachute, ballute. However, these bombs are less accurate than conventional free-fall bombs, generally the high-drag tail replaces the low-drag so that the same bomb can be configured for either mode of attack during weapons preparation. High-drag bombs can also be dropped in low-drag mode if the pilot selects this option in the weapon system
20.
World power
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World Power is the debut album of German Eurodance project Snap. Released in 1990 on Bookmark/Ariola Records, the album received generally positive reviews from music critics, as the projects musical style and its vocalists, Turbo B and Penny Tiny Ford, were well received. It also achieved commercial success with the help of four international top-ten hits. Although it did not chart on the Dutch MegaCharts, it earned gold certification from the NVPI, for sales in excess of 60,000 copies in the Netherlands. World Power has also certified gold in Australia, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom. Upon its release, World Power received generally positive reviews music critics. Greg Sandow of Entertainment Weekly called the album smart dance/rap, full of surprises, anyone open to its aesthetic will enjoy more than half its tracks. Christgau noted it as in the great transcultural Technotronic tradition and described its music as crazy and radio-ready at the same time. In a retrospective review, Allmusic writer Andrew Hamilton gave the album 3 out of 5 stars and perceived rapper Turbo Bs enunciation as a flaw, all tracks written by Benito Benites, John Virgo Garrett III and Durron Butler, unless otherwise specified. Artwork – Ariola-Studios, Tom Lyrics – Durron Butler Music – Benito Benites, singles — Billboard Official website World Power at Discogs
21.
Atomic Energy Act of 1946
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The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. The Senate passed the Act unanimously through voice vote, and it passed the House of Representatives 265–79, the Act was subsequently amended to promote private development of nuclear energy under the Eisenhower administrations Atoms for Peace program in 1954. This resulted in cumbersome command and control arrangements, and in Britain developing its own nuclear weapons, the Act was amended in 1958 to allow the United States to share information with its close allies. Nuclear weapons were developed during World War II by the wartime Manhattan Project, key scientists working on the project anticipated that their development would have wide-ranging implications. However the project director, Major General Leslie R. Groves, both reports called for a comprehensive, government-supported nuclear energy program, with military, scientific, and industrial aspects. In July 1944, Vannevar Bush, James B. Conant, in June 1945, the Interim Committee asked George L. Harrison, an assistant to Stimson and a member of the committee, to prepare legislation. Harrison brought in two experienced Harvard Law School-educated War Department lawyers, Brigadier General Kenneth Royall and William L. Marbury to take up the job of drafting the legislation. The legislation was based on Bush and Conants proposal, and the organization that it proposed was based on the structure of the Manhattan Project. Their draft bill would have created a commission consisting of five civilian. Royall and Marbury envisaged nuclear energy being controlled by experts, with a minimum of political interference, the commissioners would be appointed for indefinite terms, and the Presidents power to remove them would be limited. They would be supported by four boards, for military applications, industrial uses, research and medicine. Day-to-day running of the organization would be in the hands of an administrator, the Royall–Marbury Bill was reviewed by the Interim Committee at its July 19 meeting and revised in line with their suggestions. The draft was sent to the President in August for circulation among, only the State Department had objections, on the basis that it was still involved in trying to hammer out an international agreement on nuclear energy. The bill was known as the May-Johnson Bill for its sponsors, may immediately had the bill referred to the Military Affairs Committee, which held hearings on October 9. Bush, Conant and Groves all testified before the committee, but in the Senate Military Affairs Committee, the bill was held up by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg. There was a storm of criticism from scientists, particularly those at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, leó Szilárd and Harold Urey were particularly notable critics. The bill created a powerful administrator and deputy administrator, and specifically stated that they might be members of the armed forces and it was feared that they would dominate the part-time commissioners. The fact that the bill emphasized that the administrator had to keep the deputy fully informed further aroused suspicion that the administrator would be an Army officer and the deputy a Navy officer
22.
Intercontinental ballistic missile
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An intercontinental ballistic missile is a guided ballistic missile with a minimum range of 5,500 kilometres primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery. Similarly, conventional, chemical, and biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. Early ICBMs had limited precision that allowed them to be used only against the largest targets such as cities and they were seen as a safe basing option, one that would keep the deterrent force close to home where it would be difficult to attack. Attacks against military targets, if desired, still demanded the use of a more precise manned bomber, the result is that the power of a nuclear explosion to rupture hardened structures is greatly decreased by the distance from the impact point of the nuclear weapon. So a near-direct hit is generally necessary, as only diminishing returns are gained by increasing bomb yield, second- and third-generation designs dramatically improved accuracy to the point where even the smallest point targets can be successfully attacked. Short and medium-range ballistic missiles are known collectively as theatre ballistic missiles, the ICBM A9/A10 rocket initially was intended to be guided by radio, but was changed to be a piloted craft after the failure of Operation Elster. The second stage of the A9/A10 rocket was tested a few times in January and February 1945, the progenitor of the A9/A10 was the German V-2 rocket, also designed by von Braun and widely used at the end of World War II to bomb British and Belgian cities. All of these rockets used liquid propellants, in the immediate post-war era, the US and USSR both started rocket research programs based on the German wartime designs, especially the V-2. In the US, each branch of the military started its own programs, in the USSR, rocket research was centrally organized, although several teams worked on different designs. Early designs from both countries were short-range missiles, like the V-2, but improvements quickly followed, in the USSR early development was focused on missiles able to attack European targets. This changed in 1953 when Sergei Korolyov was directed to development of a true ICBM able to deliver newly developed hydrogen bombs. Given steady funding throughout, the R-7 developed with some speed, the first launch took place on 15 May 1957 and led to an unintended crash 400 km from the site. The first successful test followed on 21 August 1957, the R-7 flew over 6,000 km, the first strategic-missile unit became operational on 9 February 1959 at Plesetsk in north-west Russia. It was the same R-7 launch vehicle that placed the first artificial satellite in space, Sputnik, the first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on a derivative of R-7, Vostok, on 12 April 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The U. S. initiated ICBM research in 1946 with the RTV-A-2 Hiroc project and this was a three-stage effort with the ICBM development not starting until the third stage. However, funding was cut after only three successful launches in 1948 of the second stage design, used to test variations on the V-2 design. With overwhelming air superiority and truly intercontinental bombers, the newly forming US Air Force did not take the problem of ICBM development seriously. Things changed in 1953 with the Soviet testing of their first thermonuclear weapon, the Atlas A first flew on 11 June 1957, the flight lasted only about 24 seconds before the rocket blew up
23.
SM-65 Atlas
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The SM-65 Atlas was the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile developed by the United States, and the first member of the Atlas rocket family. It was built for the U. S. Air Force by Convair Division of General Dynamics at the Kearny Mesa assembly plant north of San Diego, California. Atlas became operational as an ICBM in October 1959 and was used as a first stage for satellite launch vehicles for half a century, the Atlas missiles warhead was over 100 times more powerful than the bomb dropped over Nagasaki in 1945. An initial development contract was given to Consolidated Vultee Aircraft on 16 January 1951 for what was then called MX-1593, the 1953 testing of the first dry fuel H-bomb in the Soviet Union led to the project being dramatically accelerated. The initial design completed by Convair in 1953 was larger than the missile that entered service. Contracts for warhead, guidance and propulsion were handled separately by WDD, the first successful flight of a highly instrumented Atlas missile to full range occurred 28 November 1958. Atlas ICBMs were deployed operationally from 31 October 1959 to 12 April 1965, on 18 December 1958, the launch of Atlas 10B sent the missile into orbit around the Earth carrying the SCORE communications payload. This was the first flight in what would be a career for the Atlas as a satellite launcher. Many retired Atlas ICBMs would be used as vehicles, most with an added spin-stabilized solid rocket motor upper stage for polar orbit military payloads. Mergers led to the acquisition of the Atlas Centaur line by Lockheed Martin, today Lockheed Martin and ULA support a new Atlas rocket family based on the larger Atlas V which still uses the unique and highly efficient Centaur upper stage. Shortly before his death, John von Neumann headed the top secret von Neumann ICBM committee and its purpose was to decide on the feasibility of building an ICBM large enough to carry a thermonuclear weapon. Von Neumann had long argued that while the technical obstacles were indeed formidable, the weapons had become smaller, and diode-transistor logic enabled the construction of compact guidance computers. The committee approved a reorganization and speeding up of the Atlas program. At staging, the engines would be shut off and a series of mechanical. The booster section would then be released by a series of hydraulic clamps, from there on, the sustainer and verniers would operate by themselves. Booster staging took place at two minutes into launch, although the exact timing could vary considerably depending on the model of Atlas as well as the particular mission being flown. The booster engine consisted of two large thrust chambers, on the Atlas A/B/C, one turbopump assembly powered both booster engines. On the Atlas D, the engines had separate pump assemblies
24.
Booster (rocketry)
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Boosters are traditionally necessary to launch spacecraft into low Earth orbit, and are certainly necessary for a space vehicle to go beyond Earth orbit. The booster is dropped to fall back to Earth once its fuel is expended, the rest of the launch vehicle continues flight with its core or upper-stage engines. The booster may be recovered and reused, as in the case of the Space Shuttle, the latter are frequently designated zero stages. Boosters are traditionally necessary to launch spacecraft into low Earth orbit absent a single-stage-to-orbit design, when the booster´s fuel is empty it is dropped to fall back to Earth, a point known as booster engine cut-off. The rest of the vehicle continues to fly with its core or upper-stage engines. The booster may be recovered and reused, as in the case of the Space Shuttle, the SM-65 Atlas rocket used three engines, one of which was fixed to the fuel tank, and two of which were mounted on a skirt which dropped away at BECO. This was used as an Intercontinental ballistic missile, to launch the manned Project Mercury capsule into orbit, and as the first stage of the Atlas-Agena and Atlas-Centaur launch vehicles. The Titan III, used by the United States Air Force as an unmanned vehicle, was developed from the Titan II launch vehicle by adding a pair of strap-on solid rocket boosters. It was also planned to be used for the Manned Orbital Laboratory program, strap-on boosters are sometimes used to augment the payload or range capability of military jet aircraft. NASAs Space Shuttle was the first manned vehicle to use solid-fueled boosters as strap-ons, the solid boosters consisted of stacked segments, and were recovered and reused multiple times. The booster casings for the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster were recovered and refurbished for reuse from 1981–2011 as part of the Space Shuttle program. In a new development program initiated in 2011, SpaceX developed technologies to facilitate the return, vertical landing, the program was intended to reduce launch prices significantly, opening new markets for the use of space. Rocket boosters used on aircraft are known as Jet-Assisted TakeOff rockets, various missiles also use solid rocket boosters. Examples are, 2K11 which uses SRBs as a first stage, s-200 which uses SRBs as the first stage, followed by a liquid fuel rocket. Surface-launched versions of the turbojet powered Boeing Harpoon use an SRB, another use of the term booster in spaceflight is the Booster Systems Engineer, whose call sign is Booster. This is a position at NASAs Mission Control Center
25.
Royal Aircraft Establishment
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The first site was at Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire to which was added a second site RAE Bedford in 1946. In 1988 it was renamed the Royal Aerospace Establishment before merging with other entities to become part of the new Defence Research Agency in 1991. Templers place was taken by Colonel John Capper and Templer himself retired in 1908, besides balloons and airships, the factory also experimented with Samuel Franklin Codys war kites and aeroplanes designed both by Cody and J. W. Dunne. In October 1908 Cody made the first aeroplane flight in Britain at Farnborough, in 1909 Army work on aeroplanes ceased and the Factory was brought under civilian control. Capper was replaced as Superintendent by Mervyn OGorman, in 1912 the Balloon Factory was renamed the Royal Aircraft Factory. Its first new designer was Geoffrey de Havilland who later founded his own company, one of the designers in the engine department was Samuel Heron, who later went on to invent the sodium-filled poppet valve, instrumental in achieving greater powers from piston engines. Heron later moved to the United States where he worked on the design of the Wright Whirlwind, green, G. S. Wilkinson, James E. Jimmy Ellor, Prof. A. H. Gibson, and A. A. Griffith. Both Ellor and Griffith would later go on to work for Rolls-Royce Limited, during WWII the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, then based at Helensburgh in Scotland, was under the control of the RAE. In 1946 work began to convert RAF Thurleigh into RAE Bedford, engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment invented high strength carbon fibre in 1963. In 1961, the worlds first grooved runway for reduced aquaplaning was constructed, in 1965, a US delegation visited to view the new surfacing practice and initiated a study by the FAA and NASA. On 1 May 1988 the RAE was renamed the Royal Aerospace Establishment, on 1 April 1991 the RAE was merged into the Defence Research Agency, the MODs new research organisation. Then, on 1 April 1995 the DRA and other MOD organisations merged to form the Defence Evaluation, the Bedford site was largely shut down in 1994. In 2001 DERA was part-privatised by the MOD, resulting in two separate organisations, the state-owned Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and the privatised company QinetiQ, ฿ Between 1911 and 1918 the Royal Aircraft Factory produced a number of aircraft designs. Most of these were essentially research aircraft, but a few went into mass production. Some orders were met by the factory itself, but the bulk of production was by private British companies, up to about 1913 the designation letters referred to the general layout of the aircraft, derived from a French manufacturer or designer famous for that type, S. E. = Blériot Experimental F. E. = Farman Experimental From 1913/4 onwards this was changed to a designation based on the role for which the aircraft was designed, = Armed or Armoured Experimental C. E. = Scout experimental fast single-seat aircraft, the B. S.1 of 1913 was a one-off anomaly, combining both systems, Blériot Scout. & T. E. were also used for one off prototypes
26.
Farnborough, Hampshire
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Farnborough is a town in north east Hampshire, England, part of the borough of Rushmoor and the Farnborough/Aldershot Built-up Area. Farnborough was founded in Saxon times and is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, the name is formed from Ferneberga which means fern hill. The town is probably best known for its association with aviation – Farnborough Airshow, Farnborough Aerodrome, Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough is situated in northeast Hampshire near the boundary with Surrey. The River Blackwater forms part of the boundary and it is located 34 miles southwest of London and 16 miles east of Basingstoke, directly to the south of junction 4 of the M3 motorway. The town lies at the centre of the Blackwater Valley conurbation, Farnborough has incorporated several sizeable villages as it has expanded, including North Camp to the south, Cove and Southwood, which are now considered suburbs. It is contiguous with the town of Aldershot to the south and with Frimley to the north. The council of the government district of Rushmoor is based in the town. The district has borough status and also covers nearby Aldershot, within Farnborough the only naturally occurring significant flowing water is Cove Brook. Farnboroughs lowest temperature was recorded on 20 December 2010, Farnboroughs highest temperature was recorded on 10 August 2003. Name changes, Ferneberga, Farnburghe, Farenberg, Farnborowe, Fremborough, Farneborough, Tower Hill, Cove, There is substantial evidence that many years ago a large accumulation of Sarsen stones existed upon what later came to be known as Tower Hill. The town is the home of St. Michaels Abbey, the Imperial Crypt there is the resting place of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and his wife, Eugénie de Montijo, and their son, Napoléon, Prince Imperial. The Abbey was the home of the Catholic National Library from 2007 until it was relocated to Durham University Library in 2015, the River Blackwater on the Hampshire/Surrey border was the location of the first international prize fight between Tom Sayers and John C. Heenan, which took place near the location of the Ship Inn pub, closely associated with Farnborough Airfield, situated between Farnborough and Fleet, is Samuel Franklin Cody. Cody, or Colonel Sam Cody as he was known, was one of the pioneers of aviation. He died when he crashed his plane on Ball Hill, a site which is now within Qinetiqs Technology Park, a statue was unveiled on the 100th anniversary of his death,7 August 2013. The statue is sited outside the FAST museum, home of the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, Farnborough Airfield is the site of the historic Royal Aircraft Establishment. Part of the old RAE, Farnboroughs historic wind tunnels are now listed buildings, the first built in 1917 and the other, much larger, in 1935. The latter was used extensively for research into Concorde aerodynamics, Formula 1 cars until its closure in the early 1990s, the tunnels were open to the public during June and July 2014 until the end of the Farnborough International Airshow
27.
Rocket engine
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A rocket engine is a type of jet engine that uses only stored rocket propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines, obtaining thrust in accordance with Newtons third law, most rocket engines are internal combustion engines, although non-combusting forms also exist. Vehicles propelled by rocket engines are commonly called rockets, since they need no external material to form their jet, rocket engines can perform in a vacuum and thus can be used to propel spacecraft and ballistic missiles. Compared to other types of jet engines, rocket engines have the highest thrust, are by far the lightest, the ideal exhaust is hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, but chemical rockets produce a mix of heavier species, reducing the exhaust velocity. Rocket engines become more efficient at high velocities, since they do not require an atmosphere, they are well suited for uses at very high altitude and in space. Here, rocket is used as an abbreviation for rocket engine, chemical rockets are powered by exothermic chemical reactions of the propellant. Thermal rockets use a propellant, heated by a power source such as electric or nuclear power. Solid-fuel rockets are chemical rockets which use propellant in a solid state, liquid-propellant rockets use one or more liquid propellants fed from tanks. Hybrid rockets use a propellant in the combustion chamber, to which a second liquid or gas oxidiser or propellant is added to permit combustion. Monopropellant rockets use a single propellant decomposed by a catalyst, the most common monopropellants are hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide. Rocket engines produce thrust by the expulsion of an exhaust fluid which has accelerated to a high speed through a propelling nozzle. The fluid is usually a gas created by high pressure combustion of solid or liquid propellants, consisting of fuel and oxidiser components, within a combustion chamber. The nozzle uses the energy released by expansion of the gas to accelerate the exhaust to very high speed. An alternative to combustion is the rocket, which uses water pressurised by compressed air, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or manual pumping. Chemical rocket propellants are most commonly used, which undergo exothermic chemical reactions which produce hot gas which is used by a rocket for propulsive purposes. Alternatively, a chemically inert reaction mass can be heated using a power source via a heat exchanger. Solid rocket propellants are prepared as a mixture of fuel and oxidising components called grain, liquid-fuelled rockets force separate fuel and oxidiser components into the combustion chamber, where they mix and burn. Hybrid rocket engines use a combination of solid and liquid or gaseous propellants, both liquid and hybrid rockets use injectors to introduce the propellant into the chamber
28.
Rocket Propulsion Establishment
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It was also known as the Guided Projectiles Establishment and PERME Westcott. For many years this establishment was regarded as so secret that it was not marked on Ordnance Survey maps, although it was present, from necessity, the establishment was set up in April 1946 under the Ministry of Supply. In the initial years a team of German scientists worked at the site, until the mid 1990s, Westcott undertook the design and development of rocket motors, and was responsible for most of the rocket motors used in British guided missiles and research vehicles. The design of these missile systems was undertaken by the Royal Aircraft Establishment at its facilities in Farnborough. In 1984 the Rocket Propulsion Establishment came under the control of the Royal Ordnance Factories, businesses include a division of American company Moog, which continues design and manufacture of the LEROS rocket engines, developed by Royal Ordnance. In 2013, English Heritage designated the surviving test-stands and control rooms as Grade II* or Grade II listed buildings
29.
Westcott, Buckinghamshire
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Westcott is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, England, about 1 mile west of Waddesdon. The toponym is derived from the Old English for west cottage, the Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin was designed by the Oxford Diocesan architect G. E. It is a Grade II* listed building, in the 20th century Westcott was the site of the Rocket Propulsion Establishment, which was on the former RAF Westcott airfield to the west of the main village. This has since closed down, and the area is called the Westcott Venture Park. BAE Systems maintains a presence on the site which advises on the decommissioning of military sites, street also designed the parish school. It is now Westcott Church of England School, a primary school. In 2012 it gained permission to expand the age range of its children, taking them from 4-11 years old, page, W. H. ed. Waddesdon with Westcott and Woodham. A History of the County of Buckingham
30.
Rocketdyne
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Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, located in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocketdyne Division was founded by North American Aviation in 1955, in 2005, the Rocketdyne Division was sold to United Technologies Corporation, becoming Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne as part of Pratt & Whitney. In 2013, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne was sold to GenCorp, after World War II, North American Aviation was contracted by the Defense Department to study the German V-2 missile and adapt its engine to SAE measurements and U. S. construction details. NAA also used the general concept of separate burner/injectors from the V-2 engine design to build a much larger engine for the Navaho missile project. This work was considered unimportant in the 1940s and funded at a low level. Navaho ran into difficulties and was canceled in 1958 when the Chrysler Corporation Missile Divisions Redstone missile design had caught up in development. In 1967, NAA, with its Rocketdyne and Atomics International divisions, merged with the Rockwell Corporation to form North American Rockwell, Rocketdynes next major development was its first all-new design, the S-3D, which had been developed in parallel to the V-2 derived A series. An even larger design, the LR89/LR105, was used on the Atlas missile, the Thor had a short military career, but it was used as a satellite launcher through the 1950s and 60s in a number of different versions. One, Thor Delta, became the baseline for the current Delta series of space launchers, although the original S-3 engine was used on some Delta versions, most use its updated RS-27 design, originally developed as a single engine to replace the three-engine cluster on the Atlas. The Atlas V is still in manufacture and use, Rocketdyne also became the major supplier for NASAs development efforts, supplying all of the major engines for the Saturn rocket. Rocketdynes H-1 engine was used by the Saturn I booster main stage, five F-1 engines powered the Saturn Vs, S-IC, first stage, while five J-2 engines powered its S-II second stage, and one J-2 the S-IVB third stages. By 1965, Rocketdyne built the vast majority of US rocket engines, excepting those of the Titan rocket and this sort of growth appeared to be destined to continue in the 1970s when Rocketdyne won the contract for the Space Shuttle Main Engine. But the rapid downturn in other military and civilian contracts led to downsizing of the company, during continued downsizing in the 1980s and 1990s, Rockwell International shed several parts of the former North American Rockwell corporation. The aerospace entities of Rockwell International, including the former NAA, Rocketdyne became part of Boeings Defense division. In February 2005, Boeing reached an agreement to sell what was by referred to as Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power to Pratt & Whitney of United Technologies Corporation. The transaction was completed on August 2,2005, Boeing retained ownership of Rocketdynes Santa Susana Field Lab. GenCorp purchased Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2013 from United Technologies Corporation, in addition to its primary business of building rocket engines, Rocketdyne has developed power generation and control systems. These included early nuclear power generation experiments, radioisotope thermoelectric generators, in the Boeing sale to Pratt & Whitney, the Power Systems division of Rocketdyne was transferred to Hamilton Sundstrand, another subsidiary of United Technologies Corporation
31.
Rolls-Royce Limited
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This article covers from 1904 to 1987 when this business by then owned by Rolls-Royce plc was again listed on the Stock Exchange. For the present day owners of the business enterprise, see Rolls-Royce Holdings for aero-engines etc. Rolls-Royce Limited owned a British luxury-car and aero engine manufacturing business founded in 1904 by Charles Stewart Rolls, Rolls-Royce Limited was incorporated on 15 March 1906 as a vehicle for their ownership of their Rolls-Royce business. Their business quickly developed a reputation for superior engineering quality, best car in the world, Rolls-Royce became a leading manufacturer of piston aero-engines after it was brought into building them by the First World War. In the late 1960s, Rolls-Royce Limited became hopelessly crippled by its mismanagement of development of its advanced RB211 jet engine and the consequent cost over-runs. In 1971 their financial collapse was dealt with by sale, at a price which took years to negotiate, of the entire business to a new government-owned company. Insolvent Rolls-Royce Limited was put into liquidation, everything that could be sold off was sold off but more than 45 years later there are still assets remaining to be sold. Rolls-Royce Limited continued to trade and realise the surplus assets bought from the former company, in 1977 Rolls-Royce Limited, given the necessary consent, was re-named Rolls-Royce Limited. It remained nationalised until 1987 when, re-named Rolls-Royce plc, the government sold its shares to the public, today it owns and operates Rolls-Royces principal business though it is no longer listed on the stock exchange. Instead it has been a subsidiary of a holding company currently Rolls-Royce Holdings plc since 2003. A marketing survey in 1987 showed there was one brand name more widely known than Rolls-Royce. In 1884 Henry Royce started an electrical and mechanical business and he made his first car, a two-cylinder Royce 10, in his Manchester factory in 1904. Henry Royce was introduced to Charles Rolls at the Midland Hotel, Rolls was proprietor of an early motor car dealership, C. S. Rolls & Co. in Fulham. In spite of his preference for three- or four-cylinder cars, Rolls was impressed with the Royce 10, the first Rolls-Royce car, the Rolls-Royce 10 hp, was unveiled at the Paris Salon in December 1904. During 1906 Royce had been developing an improved model with more power than the Rolls-Royce 30 hp. Initially designated the 40/50 hp, this was Rolls-Royces first all-new model, the new 40/50 was responsible for Rolls-Royces early reputation with over 6,000 built. Its chassis was used as a basis for the first British armoured car used in world wars Aero-engine manufacture began in 1914 because the government requested it. After the First World War, Rolls-Royce successfully avoided attempts to encourage British car manufacturers to merge, faced with falling sales of the 40/50 Rolls-Royce introduced the smaller, cheaper Twenty in 1922, effectively ending the one-model policy followed since 1908
32.
Thrust
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Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Isaac Newtons second and third laws. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the mass will cause a force of equal magnitude. The force applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular or normal to the surface is called thrust. Force, and thus thrust, is measured in the International System of Units as the newton, in mechanical engineering, force orthogonal to the main load is referred to as thrust. A fixed-wing aircraft generates forward thrust when air is pushed in the direction opposite to flight. This can be done in several ways including by the blades of a propeller, or a rotating fan pushing air out from the back of a jet engine. The forward thrust is proportional to the mass of the airstream multiplied by the difference in velocity of the airstream, reverse thrust can be generated to aid braking after landing by reversing the pitch of variable-pitch propeller blades, or using a thrust reverser on a jet engine. Rotary wing aircraft and thrust vectoring V/STOL aircraft use engine thrust to support the weight of the aircraft, a motorboat generates thrust when the propellers are turned to accelerate water backwards. The resulting thrust pushes the boat in the direction from the combustion chamber through the rocket engine nozzle. For vertical launch of a rocket the initial thrust at liftoff must be more than the weight. Each of the three Space Shuttle Main Engines could produce a thrust of 1.8 MN, and each of the Space Shuttles two Solid Rocket Boosters 14.7 MN, together 29.4 MN. By contrast, the simplified Aid For EVA Rescue has 24 thrusters of 3.56 N each, in the air-breathing category, the AMT-USA AT-180 jet engine developed for radio-controlled aircraft produce 90 N of thrust. The GE90-115B engine fitted on the Boeing 777-300ER, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the Worlds Most Powerful Commercial Jet Engine, has a thrust of 569 kN. The power needed to generate thrust and the force of the thrust can be related in a non-linear way and this helps to explain why moving through water is easier and why aircraft have much larger propellers than watercraft do. A very common question is how to contrast the thrust rating of a jet engine with the rating of a piston engine. Such comparison is difficult, as quantities are not equivalent. A piston engine does not move the aircraft by itself, so piston engines are rated by how much power they deliver to the propeller. Except for changes in temperature and air pressure, this quantity depends basically on the throttle setting, a jet engine has no propeller, so the propulsive power of a jet engine is determined from its thrust as follows
33.
Satellite launch vehicle
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The Satellite Launch Vehicle, or SLV was a project started in the early 1970s by the Indian Space Research Organisation to develop the technology needed to launch satellites. The project was headed by APJ Abdul Kalam, SLV was intended to reach a height of 400 km and carry a payload of 40 kg. The first experimental flight of SLV-3, in August 1979, was a failure. It was a rocket with all solid-propellant motors. The first launch of the SLV took place in Sriharikota on 10 August 1979, the fourth and final launch of the SLV took place on 17 April 1983. All four SLV launches occurred from the SLV Launch Pad at the Sriharikota High Altitude Range, a fifth flight of the SLV coming more than 33 years after its last flight will occur on May 23,2016. A modified version of the launcher consisting of its first stage will loft the HEX-1 Reusable Launch Vehicle technology demonstrator on a 10-minute mission to 70 kilometers in altitude, comparison of orbital launchers families Timeline of artificial satellites and space probes http, //www. bharat-rakshak. com/SPACE/space-launchers-slv. html
34.
Thrust vectoring
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In rocketry and ballistic missiles that fly outside the atmosphere, aerodynamic control surfaces are ineffective, so thrust vectoring is the primary means of attitude control. For aircraft, the method was originally envisaged to provide vertical thrust as a means to give aircraft vertical or short takeoff. Subsequently, it was realized that using vectored thrust in combat situations enabled aircraft to perform various maneuvers not available to conventional-engined planes, in missile literature originating from Russian sources, thrust vectoring is often referred as gas-dynamic steering or gas-dynamic control. Thrust vector control is used when the system is creating thrust. At other stages of flight, separate mechanisms are required for attitude and it is possible to generate pitch and yaw moments by deflecting the main rocket thrust vector so that it does not pass through the mass center. Thrust vectoring for many liquid rockets is achieved by gimbaling the rocket engine, the Saturn V and the Space Shuttle used gimballed engines. If the liquid is injected on only one side of the missile, it modifies that side of the exhaust plume, resulting in different thrust on that side and this was the control system used on the Minuteman II and the early SLBMs of the United States Navy. A later method developed for solid propellant ballistic missiles achieves thrust vectoring by deflecting the rocket nozzle using electric servomechanisms or hydraulic cylinders, the Trident C4 and D5 systems are controlled via hydraulically actuated nozzle. The Apollo Lunar Module had an engine in the ascent stage. Attitude control was achieved by using 16 auxiliary reaction control system engines in 4 clusters mounted on the ascent stage, the descent stage engine gimbaled, but this was computer-controlled to keep the thrust vector aligned with the center of mass and attitude control was by the ascent stage RCS. The V-2 used exhaust vanes and aerodynamic vanes, as did the Redstone, some smaller sized atmospheric tactical missiles, such as the AIM-9X Sidewinder, eschew flight control surfaces and instead use mechanical vanes to deflect motor exhaust to one side. Thrust vectoring is a way to reduce a missiles minimum range, for example, anti-tank missiles such as the ERYX and the PARS3 LR use thrust vectoring for this reason. 9M96E uses a control system enables maneuver at altitudes of up to 35 km at forces of over 20g. 9K720 Iskander is controlled during the flight with gas-dynamic and aerodynamic control surfaces. Most currently operational vectored thrust aircraft use turbofans with rotating nozzles or vanes to deflect the exhaust stream and this method can successfully deflect thrust through as much as 90 degrees, relative to the aircraft centerline. However, the engine must be sized for vertical lift, rather than normal flight, afterburning is difficult to incorporate and is impractical for take-off and landing thrust vectoring, because the very hot exhaust can damage runway surfaces. Without afterburning it is hard to reach flight speeds. A PCB engine, the Bristol Siddeley BS100, was cancelled in 1965, tiltrotor aircraft vector thrust via rotating turboprop engine nacelles
35.
Autopilot
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An autopilot is a system used to control the trajectory of an aircraft without constant hands-on control by a human operator being required. The autopilot system on airplanes is sometimes referred to as George. In the early days of aviation, aircraft required the attention of a pilot in order to fly safely. As aircraft range increased allowing flights of many hours, the constant attention led to serious fatigue, an autopilot is designed to perform some of the tasks of the pilot. The first aircraft autopilot was developed by Sperry Corporation in 1912, the autopilot connected a gyroscopic heading indicator and attitude indicator to hydraulically operated elevators and rudder. It permitted the aircraft to fly straight and level on a course without a pilots attention. Lawrence Sperry demonstrated it in 1914 at an aviation safety contest held in Paris, at the contest, Sperry demonstrated the credibility of the invention by flying the aircraft with his hands away from the controls and visible to onlookers of the contest. In 1930, the Royal Aircraft Establishment in the United Kingdom developed an autopilot called a pilots assister that used a gyroscope to move the flight controls. Further development of the autopilot was performed, such as improved control algorithms, also, inclusion of additional instrumentation such as the radio-navigation aids made it possible to fly during night and in bad weather. In 1947 a US Air Force C-54 made a flight, including takeoff and landing. Bill Lear developed his F-5 automatic pilot and automatic control system. In the early 1920s, the Standard Oil tanker J. A, moffet became the first ship to use an autopilot. Not all of the aircraft flying today have an autopilot system. The installation of autopilots in aircraft with more than twenty seats is generally made mandatory by international aviation regulations, there are three levels of control in autopilots for smaller aircraft. A single-axis autopilot controls an aircraft in the roll axis only, such autopilots are also known colloquially as wing levellers, a three-axis autopilot adds control in the yaw axis and is not required in many small aircraft. Autopilots in modern aircraft are three-axis and generally divide a flight into taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, approach. Autopilots exist that automate all of these phases except taxi. Landing, rollout, and taxi control to the parking position is known as CAT IIIc
36.
Vibration
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Vibration is a mechanical phenomenon whereby oscillations occur about an equilibrium point. The word comes from Latin vibrationem, the oscillations may be periodic, such as the motion of a pendulum—or random, such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road. Vibration can be desirable, for example, the motion of a fork, the reed in a woodwind instrument or harmonica. In many cases, however, vibration is undesirable, wasting energy, for example, the vibrational motions of engines, electric motors, or any mechanical device in operation are typically unwanted. Such vibrations could be caused by imbalances in the parts, uneven friction. Careful designs usually minimize unwanted vibrations, the studies of sound and vibration are closely related. Sound, or pressure waves, are generated by vibrating structures, hence, attempts to reduce noise are often related to issues of vibration. Free vibration occurs when a system is set in motion with an initial input. Examples of this type of vibration are pulling a child back on a swing and letting go, or hitting a tuning fork, the mechanical system vibrates at one or more of its natural frequencies and damps down to motionlessness. Forced vibration is when a disturbance is applied to a mechanical system. The disturbance can be a periodic and steady-state input, a transient input, the periodic input can be a harmonic or a non-harmonic disturbance. Damped vibration, When the energy of a system is gradually dissipated by friction and other resistances. The vibrations gradually reduce or change in frequency or intensity or cease, Vibration testing is accomplished by introducing a forcing function into a structure, usually with some type of shaker. Alternately, a DUT is attached to the table of a shaker, Vibration testing is performed to examine the response of a device under test to a defined vibration environment. The measured response may be life, resonant frequencies or squeak. Squeak and rattle testing is performed with a type of quiet shaker that produces very low sound levels while under operation. For relatively low frequency forcing, servohydraulic shakers are used, for higher frequencies, electrodynamic shakers are used. Generally, one or more input or control points located on the DUT-side of a fixture is kept at a specified acceleration, other response points experience maximum vibration level or minimum vibration level
37.
Sperry Gyroscope Company
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Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Through a series of mergers it exists today as a part of Unisys, during World War I the company diversified into aircraft components including bomb sights and fire control systems. In their early decades, Sperry Gyroscope and related companies were concentrated on Long Island, New York, over the years, it diversified to other locations. In 1918, Lawrence Sperry split from his father to compete over aero-instruments with the Lawrence Sperry Aircraft Company, in 1924, following the death of Lawrence on December 13,1923, the two firms were brought together. The company became Sperry Corporation in 1933, the new corporation was a holding company for a number of smaller entities such as the original Sperry Gyroscope, Ford Instrument Company, Intercontinental Aviation, Inc. and others. The company made advanced aircraft navigation equipment for the market, including the Sperry Gyroscope, the company prospered during World War II as military demand skyrocketed, ranking 19th among US corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. It specialized in high technology such as analog computer–controlled bomb sights, airborne radar systems. Postwar, the company expanded its interests in electronics and computing, producing the companys first digital computer, SPEEDAC, during the 1950s, a large part of Sperry Gyroscope moved to Phoenix, Arizona and soon became the Sperry Flight Systems Company. This was to preserve parts of this company in the event of a thermonuclear conflagration. The Gyroscope division remained headquartered in New York—in its massive Lake Success, Long Island, in 1955, Sperry acquired Remington Rand and renamed itself Sperry Rand. The company remained a military contractor. From 1967 to 1973 the corporation was involved in an acrimonious antitrust lawsuit with Honeywell, the company dropped Rand from its title and reverted to Sperry Corporation. At about the time as the Rand acquisition, Sperry Gyroscope decided to open a facility that would almost exclusively produce its marine instruments. After considerable searching and evaluation, a plant was built in Charlottesville, Virginia and it was later renamed Sperry Marine. Sperry also managed the operation from 1961 to 1975, of the large Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant near Minden, Sperry bought out and continued the RCA line of electronic digital computers, architectural cousins to the IBM System/360. In 1983, Sperry sold Vickers to Libbey Owens Ford, certain internal divisions of Sperry such as Sperry New Holland and Sperry Marine were sold off after the merger. This group is now part of Lockheed Martin, Sperry in Britain started with a factory in Pimlico, London in 1913, manufacturing gyroscopic compasses for the Royal Navy. It became the Sperry Gyroscope Co Ltd in 1915, in 1923, Lawrence Sperry was killed in an air crash near Rye, Sussex
38.
Missile guidance system
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Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missiles target accuracy is a factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its Single Shot Kill Probability and these guidance technologies can generally be divided up into a number of categories, with the broadest categories being active, passive and preset guidance. The concept of missile guidance originated at least as early as World War I, in World War II, guided missiles were first developed, as part of the German V-weapons program. Project Pigeon was American behaviorist B. F. Skinners attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile, Guidance systems are divided into different categories according to what type of target they are designed for - either fixed targets or moving targets. The weapons can be divided into two categories, Go-Onto-Target and Go-Onto-Location-in-Space guidance systems. A GOT missile can target either a moving or fixed target, the trajectory that a missile takes while attacking a moving target is dependent upon the movement of the target. Also, a target can be an immediate threat to the sender of the missile. The target needs to be eliminated in a fashion in order to preserve the integrity of the sender. In GOLIS systems the problem is simpler because the target is not moving, the target tracker is also placed on the launching platform. Homing Guidance, The guidance computers are in the missile and in the target tracker and these systems include, Command guidance - The missile tracker is on the launching platform. These missiles are controlled by the launching platform that sends all control orders to the missile. The 2 variants are Command to Line-Of-Sight Command Off Line-Of-Sight Line-Of-Sight Beam Riding Guidance - The target tracker is on board the missile, the missile already has some orientation capability meant for flying inside the beam that the launching platform is using to illuminate the target. It can be manual or automatic, the CLOS system uses only the angular coordinates between the missile and the target to ensure the collision. The missile is made to be in the line of sight between the launcher and the target, and any deviation of the missile from this line is corrected. That is, the missile is controlled to stay as close as possible on the LOS to the target after missile capture. is used to transmit signals from a ground controller to the missile. More specifically, if the acceleration is taken into account and added to the nominal acceleration generated by the beam-rider equations. Thus, the beam rider acceleration command is modified to include an extra term, the beam-riding performance described above can thus be significantly improved by taking the beam motion into account
39.
Nuclear warhead
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A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from small amounts of matter. The first test of a bomb released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10 million tons of TNT, a thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than 2,400 pounds can produce an explosive force comparable to the detonation of more than 1.2 million tons of TNT. A nuclear device no larger than traditional bombs can devastate a city by blast, fire. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of destruction, and their use. Nuclear weapons have been used twice in nuclear warfare, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II, the bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. The ethics of the bombings and their role in Japans surrender remain the subject of scholarly, since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for the purposes of testing and demonstration. Only a few nations possess such weapons or are suspected of seeking them, israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons, though in a policy of deliberate ambiguity, it does not acknowledge having them. Germany, Italy, Turkey, Belgium and the Netherlands are nuclear weapons sharing states, south Africa is the only country to have independently developed and then renounced and dismantled its nuclear weapons. Modernisation of weapons continues to occur, all existing nuclear weapons derive some of their explosive energy from nuclear fission reactions. Weapons whose explosive output is exclusively from fission reactions are commonly referred to as bombs or atom bombs. This has long noted as something of a misnomer, as their energy comes from the nucleus of the atom. The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium. A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton to upwards of 500,000 tons of TNT, all fission reactions necessarily generate fission products, the radioactive remains of the atomic nuclei split by the fission reactions. Many fission products are highly radioactive or moderately radioactive. Fission products are the radioactive component of nuclear fallout
40.
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment
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The Atomic Weapons Establishment is responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the United Kingdoms nuclear deterrent. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment with its site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest. All the sites are owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which has a share in AWE plc. The establishment is the destination for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmaments annual march from Trafalgar Square. The first Aldermaston March was conceived by the Direct Action Committee, the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment was established on 1 April 1950, by the Ministry of Supply, at the former RAF Aldermaston airfield. AWREs first Director was William Penney, in 1954 AWRE was transferred to the newly created United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. In 1971 the production activities of UKAEA were transferred to the newly created British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, in 1973 AWRE was transferred to the Procurement Executive of the Ministry of Defence. Parts of AWREs weapons production processes were carried out at two Royal Ordnance Factories, ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff, in 1984 these two ROFs were separated from the other ROFs, which were then formed into a government-owned defence company, Royal Ordnance plc and was privatised in 1987. ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff remained within the Procurement Executive and came under the control of AWRE, in 1987, AWRE was combined with ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff to form the Atomic Weapons Establishment. These sites being renamed AWE Burghfield and AWE Cardiff and it remained with the Ministry of Defence, Procurement Executive. However, in 1989, the UK government announced its intention to find a private company to run AWE under a Government Owned/Contractor Operated arrangement. In 1993 the government awarded a contract to Hunting-BRAE, a consortium of Hunting Engineering, Brown and Root, during Hunting-BRAEs management AWE decommissioned the RAFs WE177 freefall nuclear bomb. In 1998 the company suffered two prosecutions for safety breaches, one for discharge of tritium into a stream and another for an incident where two workers inhaled plutonium. In 1999 Hunting-BRAE lost the contract to AWE Management Ltd, a consortium of BNFL, Lockheed Martin, AWE MLs subsidiary, AWE plc, assumed responsibility for the operation of all AWE sites on 1 April 2000. This was not full privatisation as the Ministry of Defence continued to own all the AWE sites as well as a share in AWE plc. Critics pointed out that BNFL and Lockheed Martin did not have perfect safety records either, BNFL suffered embarrassing revelations of falsified quality checks in nuclear fuels and Lockheed was the subject of scathing reports on the operation of US nuclear facilities. Lockheeds failings included safety concerns at the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in December 2008, the BNFL share in AWE Management Ltd was sold to Jacobs Engineering Group, an American engineering services company. Scientists at AWE were involved in testing for radioactive poison after the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, further tests using spectroscopy designed to detect alpha radiation confirmed the result
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Aldermaston
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Aldermaston /ˈɔːldərmɑːstən/ is a mostly rural, dispersed settlement, civil parish and electoral ward in Berkshire, South-East England. In the United Kingdom Census 2011, the parish had a population of 1015, the village is in the south the mid-Kennet alluvial plain and bounds to the south Hampshire. It is roughly equidistant from Newbury, Basingstoke and Reading, centred 46 miles west-by-south-west of London, Aldermaston may have been inhabited as early as 1690 BCE, a number of postholes and remains of cereal grains have been found in the area. Written history of the village is traced back at least as far as the 9th century CE, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles show that the Ealdorman of Berkshire had his country estate in the village. The manor of Aldermaston was established by the early 11th century, when the village was given to the Achard family by Henry I, the village church was established in the 13th century, and some of the original Norman architecture remains in the buildings structure. The last resident Lord of the Manor, Charles Keyser, died in 1929. It was bought by the Praxis Group in 2013 for £4.7 million and is now subject to plans for restoration that include 227 new homes in order to finance the restoration of the manor house and grounds. The name Aldermaston is well known in connection with the UKs nuclear weapons programme, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which develops, maintains, and disposes of the UKs nuclear weaponry is in the parish. Built on the site of the former RAF Aldermaston, the plant has been the destination of numerous Aldermaston Marches, until 2006, the village was home to the Aldermaston Pottery, which was established by Alan Caiger-Smith and Geoffrey Eastop in 1955. Evidence suggests that Aldermaston was inhabited in the 12th century CE, radiocarbon dating on postholes and pits in the area show activity from 1690 to 1390,1319 to 1214, and 977 to 899 BCE. Wheat and barley grains have been found in these excavations, tests show that most of the barley was dehulled, but that absence of such debris may mean that the cereal was brought in from other areas. Before the 1066 Norman conquest of England, the land and properties of Aldermaston formed part of the estates of Harold Godwinson, the Earl of Wessex, harolds assessment of Aldermaston valued the villages 15 hides at £20 a year. As with much of the seized by William the Conqueror after his arrival in England in 1066. His Domesday Survey of 1086 identified the existence of a mill, worth twenty shillings, during the rest of Williams reign, and that of his son William Rufus, Aldermaston was owned by the Crown. The history of the Lords of the Manor of Aldermaston Court can be traced to Achard DAldermaston, six families have had lordship of the Aldermaston estate. In the 11th century, Henry I gave Aldermaston to Robert Achard of Sparsholt, in the mid-12th century, the Achard family founded the church of St Mary the Virgin. In 1292, Edward I granted the right for the lord of the manor to hold a market in the village, another charter was granted by Henry IV, with evidence that the market existed until approximately 1900. The Achards also established a fair to observe the feast of St. Thomas the Martyr on 7 July
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Liquid oxygen
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Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is one of the physical forms of elemental oxygen. Liquid oxygen has a blue color and is strongly paramagnetic. Liquid oxygen has a density of 1.141 g/cm3 and is cryogenic with a point of 54.36 K. Because of its nature, liquid oxygen can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle. Liquid oxygen is also a powerful oxidizing agent, organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen. Further, if soaked in liquid oxygen, some such as coal briquettes, carbon black, etc. can detonate unpredictably from sources of ignition such as flames. Petrochemicals, including asphalt, often exhibit this behavior, the tetraoxygen molecule was first predicted in 1924 by Gilbert N. Lewis, who proposed it to explain why liquid oxygen defied Curies law. Modern computer simulations indicate that there are no stable O4 molecules in liquid oxygen, O2 molecules do tend to associate in pairs with antiparallel spins. Conversely, liquid nitrogen or liquid air can be oxygen-enriched by letting it stand in air, atmospheric oxygen dissolves in it. In commerce, liquid oxygen is classified as a gas and is widely used for industrial and medical purposes. Liquid oxygen is obtained from the oxygen found naturally in air by fractional distillation in an air separation plant. Liquid oxygen is a cryogenic liquid oxidizer propellant for spacecraft rocket applications, usually in combination with liquid hydrogen. Liquid oxygen is useful in this role because it creates a specific impulse. It was used in the very first rocket applications like the V2 missile and Redstone, R-7 Semyorka, Atlas boosters, many modern rockets use liquid oxygen, including the main engines on the now-retired Space Shuttle. U. S. Army has long recognized the importance of liquid oxygen. In 1985 it started a program of building its own facilities at all major consumption bases. By 1845, Michael Faraday had managed to liquefy most gases then known to exist, six gases, however, resisted every attempt at liquefaction and were known at the time as permanent gases. They were oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, in 1877, Louis Paul Cailletet in France and Raoul Pictet in Switzerland succeeded in producing the first droplets of liquid air
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Kerosene
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Kerosene, also known as paraffin, lamp oil and coal oil, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum, widely used as a fuel in industry as well as households. Its name derives from Greek, κηρός meaning wax, and was registered as a trademark by Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a genericized trademark and it is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage. Liquid paraffin is a more viscous and highly refined product which is used as a laxative, paraffin wax is a waxy solid extracted from petroleum. Kerosene is widely used to power jet engines of aircraft and some rocket engines, in parts of Asia, where the price of kerosene is subsidized, it fuels outboard motors on small fishing boats. World total kerosene consumption for all purposes is equivalent to about 1.2 million barrels per day, to prevent confusion between kerosene and the much more flammable and volatile gasoline, some jurisdictions regulate markings or colorings for containers used to store or dispense kerosene. For example, in the United States, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requires that portable containers used at retail service stations be colored blue and it is miscible in petroleum solvents but immiscible in water. The American Society for Testing and Materials standard specification D-3699-78 recognizes two grades of kerosene, grades 1-K and 2-K, regardless of crude oil source or processing history, kerosenes major components are branched and straight chain alkanes and naphthenes, which normally account for at least 70% by volume. Aromatic hydrocarbons in this range, such as alkylbenzenes and alkylnaphthalenes. Olefins are usually not present at more than 5% by volume, the flash point of kerosene is between 37 and 65 °C, and its autoignition temperature is 220 °C. The pour point of kerosene depends on grade, with aviation fuel standardized at −47 °C. 1-K grade kerosene freezes around -40 °C, heat of combustion of kerosene is similar to that of diesel fuel, its lower heating value is 43.1 MJ/kg, and its higher heating value is 46.2 MJ/kg. In the United Kingdom, two grades of heating oil are defined, BS2869 Class C1 is the lightest grade used for lanterns, camping stoves, wick heaters, and mixed with gasoline in some vintage combustion engines as a substitute for tractor vaporising oil. BS2869 Class C2 is a heavier distillate, which is used as heating oil. Premium kerosene is sold in 5 or 20 liter containers from hardware, camping. Standard kerosene is usually dispensed in bulk by a tanker and is undyed, National and international standards define the properties of several grades of kerosene used for jet fuel. Flash point and freezing point properties are of particular interest for operation and safety, the process of distilling crude oil/petroleum into kerosene, as well as other hydrocarbon compounds, was first written about in the 9th century by the Persian scholar Rāzi. In his Kitab al-Asrar, the physician and chemist Razi described two methods for the production of kerosene, termed naft abyad, using an apparatus called an alembic, one method used clay as an absorbent, whereas the other method used ammonium chloride. The distillation process was repeated until all most of the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been removed, Kerosene was also produced during the same period from oil shale and bitumen by heating the rock to extract the oil, which was then distilled
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Pre-emptive nuclear strike
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In nuclear strategy, a first strike is a preemptive surprise attack employing overwhelming force. The preferred methodology is to attack the strategic nuclear weapon facilities, command and control sites. During the Cold War period, both superpowers, NATO and the Eastern Bloc, built massive nuclear arsenals, aimed, to a large extent, therefore, at times, both sides refrained from deploying systems capable of unanswerable nuclear strikes against either side. In addition, each side doubted the other sides commitment to not deploy first-strike weapons, or even in the event of their deployment, some first-strike weapons were deployed, however like most nuclear weapons, they were never used. Of the nuclear powers, only the Peoples Republic of China and India have declarative, unqualified, unconditional no-first-use policies. In 1982, at a session of the General Assembly of United Nations. This pledge was abandoned by post-Soviet Russia to compensate the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by NATO. The United States has a partial, qualified no-first-use policy, stating that they not use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. Large-scale missile defense systems are not first-strike weapons, but certain critics view them as first-strike enabling weapons and these proposed defense systems, intended to lessen the risk of devastating nuclear war, would lead to it, according to these critics. Indeed, according to theory, the side not building large-scale missile defenses would have an incentive to launch a pre-emptive first strike while such a strike could still get through. First-strike attack, the use of a nuclear first strike capability, was feared during the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Bloc. At various points, fear of a first strike attack existed on both sides, misunderstood changes in posture and well understood changes in technology used by either side often led to speculation regarding the enemys intentions. The USSR countered by developing their own nuclear weapons, surprising the US with their first test in 1949. The 1960 U-2 incident, involving Francis Gary Powers, as well as the Berlin Crisis, along with the test of the Tsar Bomba and this escalating situation came to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. However harsh and terrible the solution, there would be no other, the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in Khrushchev publicly agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba, while Kennedy secretly agreed to remove his countrys missiles from Turkey. Both sides in the Cold War realized how close they came to war over Cuba. Nonetheless, this reduction of tensions only applied to the US, the Soviet Union, in response, sent experts to spell out for Castro the ecological consequences for Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States. Castro, according to the General, quickly became convinced of the undesirability of such outcomes. S, president Ronald Reagans talk of limited nuclear war
