Second Generation's First

The Air Force's Titan intercontinental ballistic missile, black-and-white-striped and tall as a ten-story building, boomed off the launching pad at Cape Canaveral last week, roared up 50 miles or so through a long-awaited break in the grey overcast, plopped its no tons into the warm Atlantic 300 miles downrange (maximum hoped-for range: 9,000 miles). The U.S.'s first successful firing of a second-generation ICBM (after Atlas) brought cheers from airmen and Titan's Martin Co. crew, weary from a two-month fight against the gremlins that unaccountably popped its umbilical cord and played other tricks on five previous countdowns. Since two previous firing fizzles took place on the launching pad, the crewmen could even boast--and did--that theirs was the first long-range U.S. missile to perform perfectly on first launch.

Though Titan's second stage in this shoot was only a water-ballasted dummy, the first stage's performance (300,000-lb. thrust, U.S.'s biggest) promised that the hard-base missile (TIME, Oct. 13) would be ready for defense operation next year. The bird's now-certain role: temporary plug in the missile gap between the deterrent power of the Strategic Air Command's manned bombers and the oncoming solid-fuel Navy Polaris and Air Force Minuteman.

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