THANKS to your Father

Lucky man to have such great experiences to look back on and be proud.

And I see you with a baby in the avatar, meaning that likely his integrity and prowess, some of those genes are coursing through humanity. This strengthens us all.

Best comment ever

My condolences on your childhood 😅 I bet it was an A* upbringing though.

I'm STILL waiting for my damn flying car.

If you have the new HP slide rule and know what it is for.. youre hired!

That would have been the ultimate cool job.

Now! that's what you call hands on engineering

It would've been cool to make and play with wooden toys (mockups). Simulations in a computer are not as fun!

Only zombies believe that human murder machines protect them...

Not watching OF is the best I can do

and the animated figures at the beginning, where the role models for Roger Ramjet😂😂

Of course, back then, LOX was the only missile fuel developed...and that was the key to the greatest handicap of those missiles, to include Thor: Their response time. Liquid oxygen-based rocket fuel was non-storable and very hazardous. It would take hours to prepare a missile for launch *after* a launch command was given, which gave the other side a chance for the element of surprise. The contemporary Soviet missiles suffered from the same handicap. Later, a storable liquid fuel was developed which gave the missiles that used it a better response time, though the hazard was still there (just think about the Titan-II that blew up in Arkansas in 1980, when a tech dropped a socket that breached the missile's fuel tank). At the same time, they developed solid propellants for other models of missiles (think Minuteman and the later Peacekeeper), which really served the purpose of improving response time and mitigating the preparation hazards. But I digress. Regarding Thor, from accounts and footage I had seen of that missile, it was dubious at best, marred with extreme difficulties in both its development and its deployment. When fired, there seemed to be a 50/50 chance of it blowing up *on the ground.*

I just read your comment and you know why they wouldn't allow something like that with the lox is because this country has turned into a bouch of pussy and whinps

@@aloysiusbelisarius9992 It was a V-2 clone test for American aerospace engineers, build us a better longer range V-2 and this is what they came up with. It was a good training program.

@@rtqii Well, no debate there, it was an evolving science; and Thor/Atlas/Redstone were just part of that evolution.

We'd get better results if impeding nuclear holocaust and being the victim of an effective preemptive strike was on the table. Nowadays...no one's worried about that, they don't see it as credible or they have awesome bunkers and don't GAF.

Yet ppl always make money on it

You left out the corrupt politicians and their oligarch buddies getting rich........

It could be that the only projects we get to hear about are the failures. I'd like to think we have a handful of secret aircraft/weapon systems that have been developed in the last 10 years.

RIP Zumwalt

Remember late 1960s when they fired the atomic cannon straight up and it left that florescent trail in sky going up....and going down

Vandenburg is both far away from most of humanity and has a retrograde/polar arc. So… it fits many more of the launch conditions. Also… if a rocket fails. There’s only America from Cali to hawaii to pick up any high tech super classified stuff

Remember mid 1960s when they fired the atomic Canon vertically..just find out how high it would go it left a flourscent trail going up could be seen in Arizona where we were

I know right lol wtf was that

You just don't see that enough these days 🤣

Reminds me of those old dating videos.

We need at least five people to read this six line script. ok

It’s a very Tim and Eric-esque style of filming.

In the mid-50s, that was high-tech animation.

It's a small IRBM after all...

The same Eisenhower who created the MIC in the first place by centering US defense policy around nuclear weapons? The only reason he complained about the MIC in his farewell speech was because Kennedy and Johnson hammered him as soft on defense after Sputnik; he did it out of spite, not conviction.

Yea I love how America always portrayed the soviets as the aggressors there, yet even as a commie hater like I am I don’t see how they couldn’t see how and why the soviets wouldn’t do something in retaliation.

So … the real cause of the Cuban missile crisis is clear. The Soviets were threatened but they cannot place the same threat in return to ensure there is a deterrent. 🙄

@@hushpuppykl - In a word, yes. Specifically, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey, quite close to the Soviet border.

That's right. JFK asked the Russians to keep the deal secret so he doesn't look "soft on Commies".

In reality it was not the “cuban” missile crisis, it was the Turkish missile crisis…. when we studied this incident in high school of course the fact of the atlas ICBMs in Turkey was never mentioned…

Had to see a chiropractor after that joint there lol!!

Those were Jupiter IRBMs very close designs. Russians did drive a fair bargain.

Guess you did not have access to a globe in life.

Oh what a relief it is 😅

Totally...

Slide rules, drafting tables, and good old fashioned brains. 📐 ✏️ 📝 🧠

The expression "one-of" (not one-off) is a product of that time; the engineer draws something and sends the print down to the shop with a note reading, "make me one of these and we'll see if fits."

Could you put in a time for when your talking about?

Cheers. Just going to ask that. Not a ' bad' yield 1.45 mt, tops. They were strategic then!

The Cult of the PowerPoint has taken over

Government Contractor Cartoons lower morale.

I agree. The Millennial loves nothing more than cartoons and copious amounts of CGI. (served with Hot Pockets and Mountain Dew of course…)

@@nigel900 The boomer sitting and whines about the generation they raised and blame everyone else for their incompitence

@@manletopia4801 It’s Gen-X, dingus. Stop your whining and learn your abc’s…

Looks like there is one briefly seen in this video too. Look at 14:04

Like Sherlock and deductive reasoning. In order to best determine what will succeed, we must establish with certainty what will fail.

Clearly Lockheed Martin were not involved.

No we have a new program for education Joe BlowMe not our president and Obama the lying cheating scumbaggery yes folks this is what treasonous evil-doers look like. And by their actions all should know their crimes.

Cold War propaganda. This was shown in high schools, colleges, and recruitment.

No, you

It depends a lot on how high priority a project is. In the 1950's developing new nuclear delivery systems was at the top of the priority list for the US. In the 2020's, the covid vaccine was urgent, which is why it was also developed in a very short time.

In some retro-futurist world, i'm sure there is a bakery that uses ballistic missiles to deliver said cupcakes to customers all around the country.

What? Yes, you would be able to see them for quite some distance, but not that far. Even at the altitude of the ISS, you still wouldn't be able to see one at 1,000 miles down-range; never mind thousands of miles.

Thousands of miles in minutes? No. Even at Mach Two, that's about 1,200 MPH, c. twenty miles per minute.

You should look it up. The US Air Force listed the maximum speed for the original Thor that was listed at over 11,000 mph! iCBMs are incredibly fast. Currently, ICBMs lunched from the continental US can hit Moscow in about 25 minutes.

You can see man made satellites in orbit with the naked eye. You should try it. Apple has an app to help you. Look it up.

The fastest ICBM in current service is the LGM-30 Minuteman. The US Air Force lists it at over 17,000 mph

Thor was no dud, it was the beginning of a LONG line of boosters. From Thor-Able came Thor-Delta, which eventually became the Delta.

Jupiter was withdrawn from Turkey as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thor and its descendants have been used to power hundreds of satellites into space, though it's finally being wound down after over 50 years.

Those Thor missiles based in the UK would have been duds if the Cuban missile crisis hadn't ended when it did as the UK was running out of liquid oxygen.

@@neiloflongbeck5705 by the fall of 1962, Atlas was fully deployed, so I'm not sure that the inability to launch all the floors would have made much difference if war had started worldwide.

That was so cool. Lost in space. Too.prince planet not so and astro boy excellent

Not poor peoples fault. Always the wealthy and power hungry, those most distanced from the horrors, that plunge humanity into suffering.

In a world without Democrats or Communists peace would be the norm.

Honestly we are at peace as long as we don't use these weapons, and if they are used it won't matter anyways.

Thor

@@kitkat9648 behold, I am a hard of hearing

"...Thor missile units..."

@@davidfifer4729 behold, I am deaf

I heard it like that too.

Sesame Street rendering of fallout shelter survival

The economic woes we feel now are connected to vast amounts of resources, USA commits towards war.

@@uberkloden yes and no: since there’s no shortage of fake entirely conceptual money on demand, for all sorts of elite agendas, I can only conclude that the elite WANT vast numbers of folks in poverty.

Ahh theres still some missing nukes off east coast..depth to great

In fairness the tech then vs now is entirely different. Let’s just take the missile systems. In the 50’s and 60’s accuracy was measured in miles, today it’s measured in meters. Yes old mechanical systems lasted however they are only so good.

things are designed bad deliberately today.. so that way after one thing breaks you buy another

Always remember these are built by the lowest bidder/,subcontractor....we used to make parts for Ford and Xerox....their weapons and space divisions

You see the failures because they make the tabloid front pages (and most of them are fabricated, in any case). You don't hear about the successes because "US Air Force continues to improve technology you'd never be able to understand on time and on budget" doesn't generate clicks.

@@jamesharding3459 probably because the Air Force hasn't completed ANY technological advance on time or anywhere close to on budget since the 70's. Hell, that almost certainly WOULD make headlines. As for advances we couldn't understand, you must be speaking for yourself.

You are a fool, what about the forced annexation of half of the European countries Russia held at end of WW2, Russians enslaved war ravaged countries. You think the hate and suspicion of Russia is a fantasy? And now Putins doing it again!

The soviets had very hard time mastering solid fuel and digital controls, something the US had in the Minuteman and Polaris from early 1960s.

Yep! And current accuracy is listed as a 800 ft circle after a 5,000 mile flight!!

The Minuteman missiles are now series3. If you want to believe the capabilities have reduced because it makes you feel better, you just do that! If needed they will fly. 1 missile with 4 reentry warheads minimum. Submarines carry half of US nuclear arsenal if you believe releases.

Lol

It's even more exciting now. The developments even in just the last 2-3 years in data-sharing and remote targeting are frankly staggering.

Closer with shorter flight time.

IRBMs fell out of fashion quite a while ago. The main ballistic missile of the USAF is currently the Minuteman III, that'll be replaced by the Sentinel in the 2030s.

It will be difficult to make a missle that's cheaper to maintain, faster to launch, or more accurate than the solid fueled Minute Man III. Incremental upgrades to replacement missles seems more likely. But yes, studies are a necessary evil. The early ICBM-IRBM systems had to go up quick, we were trailing the Soviets in ICBM technology. Minute Man on the other hand, is a mature system, replacing 60+ years of evolution would not be easy, maybe not practical. However, other defense contractors would love to get funded for the job.

No Russian Commie Rockets 🚀 or propaganda driving us to take good enough. Now instead of a military threat the have “useful idiots” dropping Kremlin propaganda straight from our TV sets & until 2021 from the Whitehouse. Disgusting 🤮

That is because this is a completely different topic. The Thor was the first of its kind that the US developed, they _had_ to make a crash program -- which, if you will recall, failed over a dozen tests consecutively. The Minuteman is a mature system with decades of iterative development. Replacing it will be a matter of research into what areas even can be improved upon and deciding how. Consider a simplified example: The first airfoil was revolutionary and simple because it was the first: A simple flat plane at an angle. A wing on a modern aircraft will be subject to calculations to determine the behavior at every single point on it, at every conceivable speed and pressure it will encounter in flight. Is it any surprise, then, that the first can be made by a craftsman in his garage in a day and the second will take years of study by trained engineers?

Actual status is classified anyway. Who knows?

@@jamesharding3459 The problem with Minuteman is that it can't be upgraded further, it's running out of of time before it's impossible to operate safely if at all (solid rocket motors and everything else has a shelf life, at some point they become more expensive to maintain than replacing the entire unit, and that point is probably long past), they're not going to be able to penetrate enemy defenses which have been massively improved since the 1970s when the Minuteman was put into service, etc. etc. I've worked on such dated systems (though not defense related) myself, and that's the hard reality of them. What's also a hard reality is that quite often it's politically impossible to get funding for replacing them, but quite possible to get 10 times that amount of funding per year to keep them going for another year by patching and polishing things so they at least look good on paper.