The Battle for Outer Space

The Battle for Outer Space In his closely guarded headquarters in Los Angeles, Air Force Major General Bernard Schriever, 46, keeps hidden under a shroud a model of one of the intercontinental ballistic missiles which are his special concern. Less and less under wraps, in recent weeks, is slim Ben Schriever himself, and the Pacific Coast has gradually become aware that he runs something called the Western Development Division, a $3 billion Air Force project for developing, testing and possibly operating the H-bomb-carrying, 5,000-mile ICBM. Consequently, the experts took notice last week when Ben Schriever made a progress report to a hard-boiled symposium of astronautics scientists in San Diego (see SCIENCE). The report: since 1954, when the U.S. stepped up its ICBM program, it has come such a "long way in the development of space technology" that the conquest of outer space appears right around the corner--and that corner must soon be turned if the U.S. is to maintain its air supremacy.

The two biggest problems afflicting space-travel specialists as well as U.S. missilemen, said Schriever, are how 1) to propel the vehicle "up to empty space with, velocity sufficient to continue inter-body space travel" and 2) then "bring it back through an atmosphere without disintegration. In each of these respects . . . the ICBM is attaining the necessary capability." The ICBM re-entry test vehicle, the Lockheed X17, has made a number of successful flights at critical speeds (which other sources place as high as 26 times the speed of sound). Moreover, "the same guidance system that enables the warhead of a ballistic missile to reach its target . . . would also be sufficiently accurate to hit a target much smaller than the size of the moon, even at that increased range ... I would be willing to venture a guess that 90% of the unmanned follow-on [i.e., interplanetary] projects that one could visualize for the future can be undertaken with propulsive guidance, and structural techniques, presently under development" in the ICBM program.

Summed up General Schriever in a remark that rescued space travel once and for all from the realm of science-fiction fantasy: "In the long haul our safety as a nation may depend upon our achieving space superiority. Several decades from now the important battles may not be sea battles or air battles, but space battles, and we should be spending a certain fraction of our national resources to ensure that we do not lag in obtaining space supremacy." In that effort, Schriever made it substantially clear, the U.S. was determined not to lag.

The leading bird in Ben Schriever's ICBM arsenal, Convair's Atlas, is scheduled for test-firing for the first time at Florida's Patrick Air Force Base this spring. This does not mean that the ICBM is ready for the 5,000 mile trip that will carry it 500 miles up into space. The first test will be over an 1,800 mile course at a lower altitude, primarily to check aerodynamic characteristics.

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