It seems to me that the legacy of peace (at least freedom from nuclear exchange on American soil) afforded us by our ICBM programs is at least as important as the legacy of the lunar landing.
There is one Schriever legacy that is still running strong, and I think that it is his greatest accomplishment. It is the U.S. rocket that has flown more times than any other U.S. rocket, and achieved a better success rate than any other of its type: Minuteman.
Quote from: CitabriaFlyer on 01/19/2013 02:33 pmIt seems to me that the legacy of peace (at least freedom from nuclear exchange on American soil) afforded us by our ICBM programs is at least as important as the legacy of the lunar landing.I wouldn't be so quick to assign that to the various ballistic missile programs. They're remarkably inflexible weapons of extremely limited utility.
Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are separated by the Banana River (which is a lagoon, not a river). I've long thought of the KSC side as von Braun's side, and the Cape side as Gen. Schriever's side,
I interviewed Schriever back in the 1990s. By this time he had taken to repeating the same stories he had told numerous times. I only got one good quote out of him, about the National Reconnaissance Office: "They spend all their time hiding behind the goddamn door!"
Quote from: edkyle99 on 01/19/2013 09:34 pmThere is one Schriever legacy that is still running strong, and I think that it is his greatest accomplishment. It is the U.S. rocket that has flown more times than any other U.S. rocket, and achieved a better success rate than any other of its type: Minuteman. Wasn't MM more of Ed Hall's baby?
Has DoD had the foresight to get oral histories of the astronauts and project managers involved?
Just finished A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan. Overall this is a pretty good treatment of our early ICBM efforts.
By the summer of 1966, the Air Force appeared to have solved an especially serious problem—the unreliability of the NS-17 guidance and control unit used in the LGM-30F missile. The solution adopted included modifying the design, careful handling of the device while in transit to the site, and cautious starting, especially in cold weather, to avoid a "thermal shock" believed to occur when coolant was added too rapidly to a unit being brought to operating temperature. But despite these actions, NS-17's continued to fail at an alarming rate. By April 1967, for instance, there were 107 fewer units on hand for the Minuteman force than plans called for; the deficit was due to the unexpectedly large number under repair.Because of the importance of these units to the Minuteman II force, the Air Force asked for and OSD provided $13. 7 million for modifications to begin in the summer of 1967. This sum, however, turned out to be a little more than a third of the amount needed. Meanwhile, AFSC and BSD investigators studied the performance record of the NS-17 to determine the circumstances under which units were failing and scrutinized both the design and the method of manufacture to identify probable cause of failure.36The TRW Systems Corporation, which participated in the NS-17 probe, concluded that poor quality control and sloppy workmanship were among the major causes of failure. Another factor, according to the BSD program manger, was that the manufacturer, Autonetics Division of North American Aviation, had been overly bold in attempting to advance the science of microminiaturized electronics. He suggested that a more conservative approach would have eliminated the need for many of the modifications now required by the NS-17. As a result of these assessments, Systems Command tried to persuade Autonetics to do a better job, mainly by reminding the firm's executives of the importance of the Minuteman II system to the nation's security.37In the aftermath of the investigation came improved methods of production and numerous changes in the units themselves. Each group of modifications was identified by a color code, and SAC at one time found itself with yellow, blue, and red dot NS-17's in stock. By June 1967, however, the modifications had been standardized so that there were only two types of NS-17's : the old. and the new, with the latter having increased radiation shielding as well as other improvements. As a result of the corrective program, mean time between failure of guidance and control units increased from 1,400 hours in March 1967 to about 2,950 hours in July 1968. Some of the newer units, however, had operated in excess of 4,000 hours.