A Concise History of the US Air Force - Air Force Historical Studies ...

off at a moment’s notice; another was dispersed to satellite bases around
the world, complicating Soviet targeting; while a smaller was actually air-
borne. The DOD’s ultimate solution was the Triad, maintaining three pri-
mary nuclear forces, each with special advantages. The first element of
the Triad was the manned bomber, important for its load-carrying and
ability to be recalled once launched. ICBMs formed the second compo-
nent. They were important for their speed, size, and, eventually, accura-
cy. Early ICBMs, the Atlas and Titan I, burned cryogenic liquid propel-
lant and required extended launch preparations which rendered them vul-
nerable to a first strike. In the 1960s later model Titans 11s employed stor-
able propellants and, joined by the solid-propellant Minuteman, were
placed in protective silos and capable of near-instantaneous launch.
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), including the Polaris,
Poseidon, and Trident, comprised the third component of the Triad. Able
to roam the world’s oceans, missile submarines represented the most sur-
vivable of the three legs. Although the sub-launched solid-propellant bal-
listic missiles at first lacked range and accuracy, technology soon
removed these drawbacks.
The second problem created by a countervalue strategy and mas-
sive retaliation had to do with the control and integration of diverse
weapon systems into a single American war plan. In 1959 President
Eisenhower ordered that a single integrated operational plan (SIOP) be
adopted, which required coordination by the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
The need for SIOP became apparent when in the late 1950s an investiga-
tion revealed that the military services had targeted Moscow with fewer
than 170 nuclear bombs and warheads in case of all-out war.
The third problem had to do with intelligence. America’s first
steps into space, the “ultimate high ground,” were associated with intelli-
gence, surprise attack prevention, and nuclear war planning. The Air
Force also sought to exploit space for communications, navigation, and
weather forecasting.
Chuck Yeager and the XS-1 rocket aircraft, the first to break the
sound barrier, began pushing back the aerospace frontier in 1947, as did
other experimental aircraft that flew over 301,000 acres of desert testing
ground in California at Edwards Air Force Base’s Air Force Flight Test
Center. The X-15 rocket airplane flew nearly seven times the speed of
sound and seventy miles high in the mid-1960s-records that still stand
for winged aircraft. In 1957 the Air Force began the Dyna-Soar program,
later designated the X-20, to build a manned space boost glider/aerospace
plane. Dyna-Soar was cancelled in 1963 in favor of a Manned Orbital
Labor-atory, itself scrapped in 1969 because automated satellites could
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