14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great History, September 20, 2005
This review is from: Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon by Those Who Built It (Apogee Books Space Series) (Paperback)
"Atlas- The Ultimate Weapon"
Chuck Walker and Joel Powell have written one of the best books to date about the history and uses of the first American Intercontinental Ballistic Missile- the Atlas.
It details how the Vultee Corporation started building the MX-774 rocket nearly 60 years ago and how it led to the Convair Atlas ICBM and became todays Lockeed Martin Atlas V commercial launcher.
For the first time the reader gets to see behind the classifed world that was Atlas. The test stands, the test firings and the Silos, and what went on in designing and building them.
The book tells of the innovations of the stage-and -a -half rocket, whose skin was so thin that it had to be inflated to keep its shape! Some of the stories include what happened during the Cuban missile crisis when avery Atlas that could be fueled was ready to be hurled at the Soviet Union.
The Atlas story was first told in the in the early 1960s' and I find that this book jumps around in the retelling of these stories. The major problem with this book is that it is based on interviews and does not ask specific questions, like -what happened during a failure like Figure 12-6 illistrates, or how and why did they replace the sustainer engine for John Glenn's Atlas 109-D while it stood vertically on the launch pad? I still want to hear the answer to that one! There is also very little about Atlas and its uses in Project Gemini- the second American manned space project There might be a photo of an unusual Atlas configuration on one page, but the simplist of discriptions making you want to know more about that specific launch!
But these little stories are also the books major strength.There are stories about the watering holes that the men hung out in during those days, and what life was like at such remote sites like Vandenberg Air Force base( hey- this was 1960's). The book also goes into the final costs of the weapon systems.
The second part of the book tells of the evolution of the Centaur and Agena upper stages that allowed Atlas to boost spacecraft to the farthest reaches of the Solar System, and launch Americas' intellegence assets into orbit.
The book concludes with stories and appendix about what happened to the various personel, and key events in history that for Atlas included: launching the first U.S. probes to land on the Moon, and spacecraft that traveled to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
ERRORS- Figure 18-6 and 18-13 do not show John Glenn's Atlas- Mercury 6 (109-D), but Atlas- Mercury 4.
and Appendix B- what happened to launch number 64?
and why does Canada have the only original Atlas A?
ALL IN ALL, A GOOD READ!
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but..., October 16, 2005
This review is from: Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon by Those Who Built It (Apogee Books Space Series) (Paperback)
Pretty good book. Some of the stories are great - my favorites are from test failures. Some of the safety procuedures were very 'seat of the pants', as should be expected when the rules are being written as you go. Gave me a new appreciation of the bravery of the engineers and support staff involved.
I still think the book is missing something. Not sure if it is context or some of the technical depth. I found Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program to be a better history of US cold war missile development than this book. Dry, but packed full of information.
What I really want is a history of Polaris which is not on its bureacratic success or a 1960s fan book.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Atlas Missile, July 10, 2006
This review is from: Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon by Those Who Built It (Apogee Books Space Series) (Paperback)
I was a young engineer right out of college in 1956 when I went to work at Convair in San Diego. I knew most of the people and the history of the Atlas missile. I was in the antenna design group under George Tweed....a great supervisor who latter became Chief Engineer. The work ethic was great in those days. We were working on the ICBM that had national priority. I was with Convair until 1962. This book brought back many wonderful memories of the Atlas missile program and people that worked on it.
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