"ATLAS READY" 1960 GENERAL DYNAMICS PROMO ATLAS ICBM INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE 86384

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Produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics, this color film presents the Atlas Missile, the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) developed by the United States and the first member of the Atlas rocket family, as well as one of the first large liquid-fueled rockets. The first successful flight of a highly instrumented Atlas missile to full range occurred 28 November 1958, and the film probably dates from that time period. Atlas ICBMs were deployed operationally from 31 October 1959 to 12 April 1965
Opening title: ATLAS READY over an image of a red telephone buzzing (:11-:22). Vandenberg Air Force Base, headquarters for Strategic Air Command (SAC) located 9.2 miles northwest of Lompoc, California. Atlas missile moves from an underground silo on an elevator and into position, ready for launch. Air Force crew looks up at the Atlas. Inside a blockhouse control room, launch crew monitors the Atlas. Engineers with headsets watch monitors. Buttons illuminate confirming that the launch status is go (:23-2:37). A red telephone has a direct line to SAC in Omaha, Nebraska. Outside the blockhouse, antennas are arrayed in a series of long, pipe-like structures Shot of the missile with "Strategic Air Command" painted on its side (3:46). Men monitor if the missile is on its correct path. Air Police are responsible for security. Aerial shot of the Atlas missile. Atlas stands alone. Men radio in (2:38-4:25). A man enters bunker and the doors automatically close shut. A man on a headset radios in. Screens show the missile. Men work in the control room. Loop Test button turns from red to yellow. Atlas missile is getting ready to launch. Smoke or vaporizing propellant billows from the missile. A button is pressed, an antenna moves slowly (4:26-5:58). Missile ready button is green. A man gives orders on his headset. Flight pressurized button turns green. Men wear headsets, speak orders, and monitor screens. Radar antenna. The Atlas Missile is successfully launched (7:14). It heads downrange. A radar antenna follows it. High in the sky is the Atlas missile (5:59-8:13). End credits (8:14-8:22).
The SM-65 Atlas was t It was built for the U.S. Air Force by the Convair Division of General Dynamics at an assembly plant located in Kearny Mesa, San Diego. Atlas became operational in October 1959, but was soon made obsolete as an ICBM by new development, and was retired from this role by 1965. Atlas required long preparation times which made it unsuitable for a quick launch ICBM. However, this was not a requirement for planned space launches, and so Atlas-derived launch vehicles served a long history as space launchers. Even before its ICBM use ended in 1965, Atlas had placed four Project Mercury astronauts in orbit and was becoming the foundation for a family of successful space launch vehicles, most notably Atlas Agena and Atlas Centaur. Mergers led to the acquisition of the Atlas Centaur line by the United Launch Alliance. Today ULA supports the larger Atlas V, which combines the Centaur upper stage with a new booster. Until 2001, many retired Atlas ICBMs were refurbished and combined with upper stages to launch satellites.
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[@thomthumbe]

My uncle was OIC of one of the radar tracking antennas at Vandenberg. He never talked much about the unmanned missions, but could talk for hours about NASA missions. During early NASA flights, his station was the first received RF that confirmed the launch from Florida had succeeded, or not. Later missions depended on first RF from stations in the Atlantic Ocean (islands or ships) or the African Continent. He was given an award from NASA years later for participating in the Apollo 11 mission. He gave me that plaque before he passed away. I remember when my family visited their family and he took us on base for a tour. I was very young, but I do recall asking what the “hole” in the dish antenna surface was for….and I remember him telling me it was a video camera which was used at to “confirm” antenna pointing, usually by stars at night. Or when they pointed at a test RF source located on a tower elsewhere on base. Good days!

[@blurglide]

Launches from FL go to the east. They have to go all the way around the world before they hit California, so I think they'd know before that.

[@slowneutron6163]

We'll meet again.......don't know where.....don't know WHHEEENN........but we'll meet again some....sunny dayyy........

[@GeeKayKayGee]

"YAAAAAAAaaaaaHOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!"

[@GeeKayKayGee]

"Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!"

[@oldguy7402]

It's crazy that Atlas was so labor intensive to launch then. I served on Titan II crew 74-79. Only took a few minutes to launch.

[@oldguy7402]

@Barry Hoffman 47 for the Atlas? The Titan II was less than 60 seconds from turning keys. I believe the polar warning window gave us 20 or so minutes from detection to impact. Of course, in Atlas days, I don't believe USSR had ICBM capabilities, just manned bombers.

[@topsecret1837]

@@oldguy7402 They had the R-7, which for all intents and purposes was on par with Atlas although potentially superior in range despite the inefficiency.

[@oldguy7402]

@@topsecret1837 Thanks for the info. I didn't know that. Do you know the time to launch? Although it is doubtful we would have used a first strike, I think.

[@Zoomer30]

To Go Boom.

[@patrickmchenry2217]

Telephone=instrument

[@foxmccloud7055]

I hear that the Atlas series of launch vehicles are going out of business in favor of the Vulcan launch vehicles.

[@lwilton]

The Vulcan came about 50 years after the Atlas. And it isn't an ICBM. The Atlas was the first ICBM we had. It worked well, but it was a finicky machine, and liquid fueled. That meant it was a heck of a lot more work to maintain and launch it than later solid-fueled missiles that pretty quickly replaced the Atlas as an ICBM. You can see how long this test launch took. A later solid fueled rocket could be ready to go and launched in about 5 minutes, rather than the 15 minutes that this took. The Atlas missiles were removed from ICBM service, and instead used to launch space research payloads for the Air Force and NASA. There were several hundred of these machines made, and virtually all of them were successfully used to launch satellites.

[@topsecret1837]

@@lwilton Well it was a complex missile system. And one using Balloon tanks pioneered by the Hiroc sounding rocket ten years prior to the Atlas’s introduction. Alongside the Atlas in 1958 were the final Redstone flights and service, the final direct American derivative of the A4 German rocket of WWII vintage; the Jupiter and Thor, using identical engines but with Thor being air transportable, and Titan I, which was nearly identically complicated to Atlas in operation but it developed into the Titan II which, as you clearly know was vastly better an ICBM. As a launch vehicle? It was a bit of a bore, albeit spectacular with two SRBs it was mighty expensive and worse, it used hypergolics.

[@topsecret1837]

Technically the Atlas ceased to exist in this form in 1958 when the Atlas IIAS launched for the final time in 2004. After that the Atlas III, still with Balloon tanks but with Russian engines flew for an incredibly short amount of time until Atlas V succeeded it, which has almost nothing to do with the original atlas except for a roughly shared upper stage design in Centaur. Vulcan adapts the construction techniques of Delta IV (which has almost nothing to do with Delta II except for, yet again, the shared upper stage of Delta III) with the SRBs on Atlas V while introducing LNG and a bigger Centaur. Nothing truly original beyond the RL10s and stainless steel build of the upper stage tanks.

[@Truck_Company_84]

@@topsecret1837You hit the nail on the head bud! It’s a shame that they didn’t just produce new American engines, in which we finally are.

[@simonf8902]

MAD. Mutually assured destruction. And the nukes still exist.

[@Its_a_kind_of_magic71]

Who had email in 1960?

[@rearspeaker6364]

that was a fax machine, size of a dryer.

[@jamesanderton344]

Telex

[@rearspeaker6364]

@@jamesanderton344 that too.

[@jimmcfarland3446]

Too bad General Dynamics has turned into such a shit company....