 This is The Big Picture, an official television report of the United States Army, produced for the armed forces and the American people. Now to show you part of The Big Picture, here is Master Sergeant Stuart Quain. By now, most of us have seen on television or in the newsreels the drama of the launching pad, when a long-range missile is fired into the air, an orange surge of flame, a thunderous bellow of sound, then up it goes, until, as far as the naked eye is concerned, it disappears into the skies. What then? Today's Big Picture is the story of what then? The story of how long-range missiles streak through the air to strike unerringly, even a small target a long distance away. Our story begins a few miles from the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, one morning not long ago. I was almost there, and well ahead of time, till the arrangement was for me to meet my son at the service club at 5 p.m., the service club at the White Sands Proving Ground. It was still early. I could take it easy from here on, enjoy the scenery. I had really been beating out the miles in the last two days. Just over on the other side of those mountains was my son, involved in missile work. For myself, I wasn't particularly interested in rockets and that sort of thing, but I had to admit that I'd been jolted not too long ago by a startling news event. Sputnik, like it or not, we were in the space age, and I was very much interested in this country's missiles and what they could do for our defense above all things. My son, Ken, was certainly in the forefront of the day's events. The White Sands Proving Ground was a key center of missile activity. I wondered what he was doing at 9.30 in the morning. No delays so far on this test. I guess I'll be crossing my fingers all day long again. It's always this way on the day of a shoot. I guess today I feel some extra excitement about seeing Dad when the shoot's over. That is, if we're on time. She's fueled, ready to be hooked up and pulled away. Nike Hercules, round-to-air missile for defending American cities against enemy aircraft, a weapon of extraordinary accuracy. This afternoon, we're holding one of many continuing tests on this missile, on its design, quality of manufacture, on missiles going to the troops in the field, on missiles that have been in the field and are backing now for a checkup, constant tests to improve and refine. With a solid propellant, Nike Hercules is a lot easier to handle than Nike AJAX. But still, she's got to make the trip to the launching site within a 10-mile-an-hour speed limit. The launching site was the booster, the four rockets that give the missile its initial, powerful thrust. I'm a PFC. This is a choice assignment. And those usually assigned to it hold a college degree in engineering. My job requires close watch over certain phases of the test. If, for example, the missile didn't arrive on time, or if something occurred to interrupt the joining of the missile towards booster, I'd be on the phone to my boss who was in charge of the test. Just before noon, Nike Hercules was slid over to go underground for some final checks. As the missile descended, I thought of all that goes on in the background of any one firing test, countless other tests and studies of the most exacting sort. Thinking back over what I'd seen during these past months, I felt rather fortunate in having been part of the intensive engineering and scientific activity at White Sands Proving Ground. For the past six months, the focus of all my work has been here in the office of the Nike Hercules project manager. Our group is one of many serving ordinance mission, the agency responsible for engineering evaluation of army missiles. As a recent graduate of engineering school, I've spent almost all my army time getting a firsthand education in many different phases of missile work. No one who's just gotten out of engineering school likes to specialize too early. So this has been a wonderful chance to gain broad experience in a field that's growing all the time. The tests being carried out here cover every imaginable aspect of the missile. The army wants to know how well the missile's delicate mechanisms will stand up to all sorts of conditions in and sometimes out of this world. Three factor in the test is carefully controlled and taken into account later when the missile will be examined to see how much moisture has penetrated to delicate parts. Right now, another test. A simulated tropical hurricane. The amount of blast produced by the wind machine, the amount of rainfall, these facts are measured and charted. An ordinance engineering evaluation test such as this sometimes goes on for weeks or months. Whether the test be to discover the effects of temperature, high altitude pressures, humidity or other environments, ordinance engineers share a common objective. Can the missile take it? An enormously severe strain is put on the missile at the takeoff and at the moment of separation from its booster. Special equipment has been designed to simulate these shocks. The missile is raised in order to test the effect of a sudden sharp drop. The problem of what happens once a missile leaves the ground is partly answered by holding the missile firmly to earth and studying it as it fires. Here on this stand, a static test is about to begin. Fueling with a liquid propellant has been completed. Attention all personnel, attention all personnel, clear the area, clear the area. These are the last moments before flames belch from the motor. Providing the missile with its tremendous thrust is a massive information to the engineers at the instrument panels. Right here on these recorders is the reason for the test. When the firing is over, it is only the beginning. Every time a missile is static fired or launched into the sky, a huge amount of data is collected. Most of this information is not usable until reduced to concrete units of measure, such as on these punched cards. The punched holes represent facts which in their raw state may have come in on various recording machines, for example as squiggly lines on pieces of film, as eerie sounds on reels of tape, as scope patterns, pick tracings on rolls of paper. Translating this basic material into manageable forms such as punched cards is called data reduction, an important phase of work at the proving ground. Only after this process can the punched cards be fed to mammoth scientific computers, which can be set to work to produce the statistical results awaited by missile scientists and engineers. Giant electronic devices capable of lightning conclusions to mathematical problems are essential to many phases of missile testing and research. A most extraordinary area utilizing highly complicated electronic equipment is the flight simulation lab. Computers carefully set for a particular missile problem will provide the answers on a plotting board. Enemy target, this tiny tracing pen, is positioned for flight while another pen, the missile, is brought to the launch site. Simulated flight tests make possible a tremendous saving of costly missiles. Data is fed to the machines, such factors as motor thrust, wind velocity, gravity, temperature, and many others. No dramatic countdown here, no flurry of activity. Calmly, deliberately the firing switch is thrown. But even here there's a kind of tension waiting to see if the estimations have been correct. Is in the sky. The guided missile is launched to bring it down and it races through space. Thus, by ingenious manipulation of countless wires, cubes, and electrical currents, new facts for missile progress are revealed day by day. But inevitably the big showdown is the missile in the sky. Being studied during its flight test, gathering data and sending it back through the telemetering equipment installed yesterday at the assembly area. Now all preliminaries were behind us. It was the afternoon of the shoot. So much preparation has gone into the test. Everyone is a bit more tense. Even my chief, the project manager, who has been through it so many times. In the nearby battery control van, the man who will push the firing switch is ready to announce the countdown. Time is now X minus 20 minutes. Clear the area of all unauthorized personnel. A few finishing touches and the missile will be armed ready for flight. Time will be X minus. The range controller is overseeing the operation, making sure that the range is clear and ready, seeing to it that all test requirements are being met. This is range control. Come in Nike Hercules project command. Go ahead range control. The range is going green. We do not expect any hold at this time. The missile is erect, ready to spring to the sky. Wind speed and direction is checked up until the last minute. Complex instruments are checked out, set to track the missile. Everybody waits as the tension mounts during the final moments of countdown. 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17. This is range control hold at X minus 17 seconds. Something had gone wrong. One of the thousands of details that have to be letter-perfect were not quite ready for the firing test. Calling range control, this is Army 220. Report of unauthorized vehicle in the danger area is confirmed. And landing to investigate. Nike Hercules, this is range control. Request you set time back to X minus seven minutes and hold. A vehicle must be cleared from the danger area. Later on I found out that the completely improbable had happened. Someone had driven a car to a spot off the highway before the MPs had swept the road prior to setting up their roadblock. Seemed that some lady had been looking for a nice quiet place to have a picnic lunch, or she'd been out looking for rock specimen to something. Well, one of the pilots assigned to sweeping the area as a double check found her and put her straight as to where she was and how it was important for her to leave the area immediately. This is Army 220. Unauthorized vehicle leaving danger area. Range will be clear in approximately seven minutes. Near the entrance to the proving ground I ran into some sort of roadblock. They were just about to fire a missile. At the head of the roadblock we were told we'd be able to see the shoot in just a few minutes. They were waiting for a vehicle to come off the range. Nike Hercules, the range is going green. 22, 18, 17, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 3, 2. Block position we were able to see the missile hurdle into the air. Moment it was out of sight gone into a boundless sky. It was tremendously impressive. A few minutes later I was on my way to the appointment with my son. It was wonderful to see dad again. After he had filled me in on recent doings back home we started to talk about the shoot. Shoot extremely impressive but I don't know Ken that's an awfully big sky up there. What do you mean dad? Well it's one thing to shoot a missile into the sky. Oh I know there are a lot of complicated problems involved just getting one of those missiles off the ground. I'm not minimizing the achievement but it's another thing to to what dad? To hit something and target I mean and through all it isn't as if that missile had a pilot to point away. You can't tell me that once those things are off the ground there's any real control over where they go. As I listened to my dad it struck me for the first time. He had seen the missile disappear into the sky but he hadn't seen it hit anything and after all a missile is not much good unless it's placed on target. Excuse me just a minute. Something had occurred to me. It just might work. I knew the project manager was probably back at his desk going over some of the data on the afternoon shoot. He listened to the favor I asked of him and told me it would be okay. Oh good fine yes we'll be there. Thanks very much. Okay bye. Dad how'd you like to go to a movie? Movie? See I can come all the way out here. Not an ordinary movie. Some newspaper editors are visiting White Sands and they're having an orientation in just a few minutes. I think you'd be interested. For what? They're showing a special film on missile hits. You mean I'll be able to see a missile not only taking off but hitting something? With your very own eyes dad the orientation is not classified and the project manager said it would be okay. Have time to finish my coffee? Just about. A few minutes later dad and I were in a darkened orientation theater on the post watching some films. First we saw a small target set up out on the range. The first missile we were to see in action was the dart. This is the army's anti-tank missile designed for use by frontline troops. Being targeted for the dark dad's star alongside me. Next on the screen we saw a bunker rugged well built a kind of enemy strong point that holds up in advance. A squad leader calls for assistance behind him in reserve is a field artillery guided missile for use in close tactical support of ground troops. The lacrosse out of sight of the launch position. Accuracy that could make even a skeptic like my dad sit up and take notice. Next target on the screen a white washed circle range. A team was ready to fire an honest John a tactical weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. For this test the warhead contained only a small amount of explosives. It's target a QF-80 jet plane for test this afternoon. When I had seen the missile go up penetrate the blue and that was all I wondered when the missile had gone out of sight. Now I was to see hey in the sky a fast moving plane. It was over. I looked at my dad it was as though he had suddenly realized something a basic fact in our missile defense program the result of tremendous scientific and engineering effort missiles not only go up they hit targets at the white sands proving ground and other areas an elaborate all out testing and development effort is being pushed ahead not only to put long range missiles into the air and speed them vast distances but if need be to place their awesome destructive power squarely on the target now this is sergeant steward queen your host for the big picture the big picture is an official television report for the armed forces and the american people produced by the army pictorial center presented by the united states army in cooperation with this station