Now, the "accident" came about through the fact that the Russians apparently did not achieve a lightweight thermonuclear warhead, and hence decided that their missile must have a thrust of 300,000 pounds or more. So they developed such a rocket—in great secrecy, of course.
Hence, in 1957, Russia emerged with the first 350,000-pound rocket and we produced the first Atlas, with one-half that thrust. Each nation achieved what it set out to achieve: an operational intercontinental ballistic missile adequate for its needs.
But now came the political decision. The scientists of both nations considered it desirable to launch earth satellites in conjunction with the International Geophysical Year program. The United States decided that, since IGY was a peaceful international effort, it would not use military equipment in the program, but would develop a smaller rocket for the space-launching task. It was called Project Vanguard, and full information about it was released to the public.
The Russians released no public information but in secret decided to use their large military rocket as a booster for a space vehicle. They apparently put an enormous effort on this project in order to beat the well-advertised Vanguard dates. They succeeded dramatically, of course, and thus exhibited the advantages of very-large-thrust rockets for space expeditions. At that time we did not have any firm military requirement for a rocket larger than the Atlas (nor do we today for ICBM weapons). Hence, no large rockets were even on the drawing board. Hence, we still have none, and won't have for a year or two.
So it came to pass that a technical accident and a secret political decision combined to produce an enormous psychological victory—and brought the entire world to begin to think about the importance of space—and shocked the entire world into an awareness that Russia was no longer a nation populated solely by illiterate peasants. It should not have taken Sputnik to teach us this; there was plenty of other evidence.
Obviously, a substantial part of the initial shock came about because of the possible military implications of the Russian Sputnik. Because the U.S.S.R. launched a bigger space vehicle earlier than we could, it was immediately concluded that military supremacy had now passed to the Communists—and the term "missile gap" or "missile lag" entered the English language.
We have already seen that our Atlas or Titan missiles will carry our best thermonuclear warhead to any possible target—and these missiles are now be coming operational. A missile of twice the thrust would not do that job any better. We don't have to carry larger loads any farther to achieve any foreseeable military mission. Clearly, the fact that the Russians are using a larger rocket to achieve their purposes is of no military consequence to us whatsoever. No military superiority resides in a thrust larger than necessary for our purposes: If "missile lag" means they have larger-thrust missiles than we need, then the missile lag is not of consequence at all, and we should quit worrying about it and quit using the term!
Does missile lag mean they have more intercontinental missiles than we do? That, of course, would be more serious. However, we must all be confused by the conflicting information being released on how many missiles they have or will have in the near future. And no analysis has been released to the public on whether they would need three times as many weapons to knock us out as we would need to knock them out. So we don't know—at least, I don't know—whether there is really any numbers lag or not. Let me add, however, that, since we don't know, we would do well to put forth all efforts to increase our number of operational Atlas and Titan and Thor and Polaris and other military missiles as rapidly as possible, until our needs have been met.
Furthermore, until then, we should divert as few as possible of these priceless military weapons to nonmilitary space ventures. I prefer the solid comfort of a good military weapon in our arsenal to the passing psychological satisfaction of launching a bigger vehicle to carry cosmic-ray counters into space. As a scientist, I can assure you that I am very much interested in carrying cosmic-ray and many other scientific instruments into space as soon as possible. But scientific experiments can wait if military security is at stake. We should abandon the illusion that launching big space vehicles automatically assures military supremacy.
However, even if we can be skeptical about the existence of a missile lag, we cannot deny the existence of a "space lag." Even if huge booster rockets do not necessarily make any more effective ICBM's, they do undeniably enable one to launch larger space vehicles and to send them farther into space. In this the Russians have acquired a substantial lead which we envy.
We might envy the Soviets their space lead for three reasons: (1) military; (2) scientific; or (3) psychological (or political or prestige). Let us deal with each in turn.
I. MILITARY VALUE
Does it give the Soviet Union a military advantage (at present or in the foreseeable future) to he able to launch larger space vehicles than we can, or launch them farther into space?
There are going to be strenuous arguments on that question for years to come, for no one actually knows whether—or to what extent—there will be important military uses of space vehicles.
The values to military forces of communication networks employing satellites are obvious—and should
