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Correction: article asserts that the Atlas ICBM was the first operational intercontinental missile. This is incorrect -- that honour belongs to the R-7 Semyorka

Correction: article asserts that the Atlas ICBM was the first operational intercontinental missile. This is incorrect -- that honour belongs to the R-7 Semyorka, which beat it by several months and which is still in service today as the Soyuz launch vehicle. (Yes, there's a thing called Atlas-5 that flies satellites: it's hard to see any engineering similarities between it and the original ICBM of that name; unlike the Soyuz vehicle, Which was a terrible, bad, no-good ICBM -- it took about 6 hours to fuel up and prep for launch, on pads which were 4 hours from the USSR's border as the B-52 flies -- but turned out to be a really good satellite launcher.)

basementcat 7y ago
Both R-7 and Atlas SM-65 were difficult to keep in a state of launch readiness and were not capable of being launched at a moment's notice (unless a "moment" is between 6 and 12 hours). This was somewhat expected as they were essentially "version 1.0" of the ICBM launch vehicle. Later generations were considerably improved.
anonymousiam 7y ago
Atlas Centaur is still used today for ULA launches. It is the most reliable launch vehicle in existence.
- jccooper 7y ago
  Centaur is somewhat derived from the original Atlas. The Atlas V itself has very little lineage from the Atlas SM-65, other than name, though it is somewhat connected in a weird ship-of-Thesus way. (It uses the same engines as the Atlas III, which uses the same tank construction technique as the original Atlas.)
chipsa 7y ago
Atlas evolved quite a bit over the years. They added Centaur to the top. They changed from the stage and a half staging. They added solid rocket boosters. They went from balloon tanks to iso grid based rigid tanks.
milsorgen 7y ago
>which is still in service today as the Soyuz launch vehicle. That's not quite true, the evolved platforms are used but the initial R-7 wasn't used all that long.

basementcat 7y ago

Both R-7 and Atlas SM-65 were difficult to keep in a state of launch readiness and were not capable of being launched at a moment's notice (unless a "moment" is between 6 and 12 hours). This was somewhat expected as they were essentially "version 1.0" of the ICBM launch vehicle. Later generations were considerably improved.

anonymousiam 7y ago

Atlas Centaur is still used today for ULA launches. It is the most reliable launch vehicle in existence.

jccooper 7y ago
Centaur is somewhat derived from the original Atlas. The Atlas V itself has very little lineage from the Atlas SM-65, other than name, though it is somewhat connected in a weird ship-of-Thesus way. (It uses the same engines as the Atlas III, which uses the same tank construction technique as the original Atlas.)

chipsa 7y ago

Atlas evolved quite a bit over the years. They added Centaur to the top. They changed from the stage and a half staging. They added solid rocket boosters. They went from balloon tanks to iso grid based rigid tanks.

milsorgen 7y ago

>which is still in service today as the Soyuz launch vehicle. That's not quite true, the evolved platforms are used but the initial R-7 wasn't used all that long.