U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (1970)

Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming was the base of the first full squadron of Atlas ICBMs in August 1960. This new breed of deterred weapon systems was stored in concrete structures and directed when fueled in preparation for launch. A later version of the Atlas was stored in underground silos to give it greater protection from possible attack. Since the Atlas was the 10 lizzy of the missile age, newer, more powerful, and more sophisticated missiles would have followed soon. This is the Titan 1, stored and fueled in underground silos, and raised by elevator to its launch position. The Titan 1's first successful launch came on February 6, 1959. Its power and accuracy were impressive, but it took too long to load it with fuel to bring it up to launch position and get it off the pad.

We might not have the luxury of that much time in an all-out war. Thus was born the Titan 2, which entered the operational force in June of 1963 and remains the biggest, most powerful missile in the strategic force. New fuels we call hypergolic can be successfully stored in the missile for long periods of time, and instead of being raised to the surface, it is fired directly from its underground silo to targets over 6,000 miles away. The strategic missile force was coming alive. We had reduced reaction time. We had improved survivability. We had learned much about missiles, and that knowledge gave us a leg up in the manned space program. The Titan would be the booster for the Germany program. Beginning in April 1964, 10 successive manned launches were never a malfunction or failure by the Air Force Titan 2.

The basic Titan booster sandwiched between two powerful solid fuel boosters comprise the Titan 3, not a weapon, but a space booster, in Air Force Jargon, a standard launch vehicle. It has performed such tasks as placing eight communication satellites into space in a single launch. The solid fuel boosters give the Titan 3 its big lift off the pad, and solid fuel propulsion was the technology advance that revolutionized with ICVM force. When the solid fuel Minuteman missile was introduced to the public for the first time in 1959, General Thomas White, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, said,

We should have a mix of offensive systems such as manned aircraft, manned aircraft with bombs, air-to-surface missiles, big missiles, the Minuteman missile in quantities, the polaris, and so on. In order to complicate the enemy's defensive problem and also to make it much more expensive for him, so that he puts ever into defense that he can't put into offensive weapons. Events moved rapidly in Minuteman development. In September 1959, a tethered launch to test the first stage engine as it was to the full scale missile from an underground launch pad at Edwards Air Force Base in California.