Guided Missile Trivia Quiz

Barry O'Neill, 1991

"Great Hercules, what a novelty! Man is a crafty creature of many wiles."

                                                                                                         -- Homer.

"O bomb I love you. I want to kiss your clank, hug your boom."

-- Gregory Corso, Bomb


1. Operational Minutemen missiles are pale green and white. ICBM vulnerability refers to the danger that the missiles may be attacked in their silos, and the green colour is related to one aspect of vulnerability. How so?
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2. In 1957 a prominent figure proposed that the US and USSR hold a peaceful targetting match (without warheads) to see whose missiles were more accurate and reliable. Further suggestions were to remove the warheads, and have separate competitions for different classes of missiles, with radar tracking through the flight to make sure of no cheating. The proposer was:

__Nikita Khrushchev,   __Harold Stassen,   __Bertrand Russell,

__Pat Paulsen,   __Edward Teller,   __Charles Stark Draper.
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3. Since World War II, the US has given scores of male names to missiles (Jupiter, Pershing, Minuteman, etc.) What was the only female name attached to a US military missile?
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4. January 10, 1984, Warren Air Force Base, near Cheyenne, Wyoming: An Air Force enlisted man drives an armoured vehicle onto the concrete slab doors of a Minuteman silo, and puts it in park.

__ It was done on a Saturday night dare made at a local bar.

__ It was done to stop the missile from launching itself.

__ It was part of a demonstration for the Strategic Defence Initiative.
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5. In the early 1980's in New York State, a local farmer rammed the door of an Atlas silo with a truck. What were his motives?
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6. Before the early US strategic missiles were equipped with electronic locks, permissive action links or PALs, they had security devices known as ESDs. What were these?
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7. Two launch control centers have completed procedures for a delayed Minuteman launch (a real one), with liftoff time set for one hour hence. News arrives that the war is over.

__ The launch can be halted by either control center,

__ It can be halted by joint action of two LCCs, but that would violate procedure,

__ It can be halted only on coded orders from the National Command Authority,

__ There is no way at all to stop the launch.
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8. Until the late 1970's it was physically possible for a single two-person launch crew acting on their own (without permission from above) to put a Minuteman into preterminal launch mode (launch in an hour unless vetoed by other launch crews), and it was also physically possible for two crews to fire a missile immediately with no possibility of vetos. Then PAL-like electronic locks were installed, that blocked a launch unless the crew received the unlocking code from higher up. The change was not motivated by worries about the reliability of the launch crews. Why were the PALs added?
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9. The "football," a response to the first ICBMs, is the satchel containing instructions, plans, and codes to help the President conduct a nuclear war from wherever he happens to be. Carried by a military aide, it is said to accompany the President at all times. Does that mean it travelled with Reagan on his visit to Moscow? How could that be?
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10. The Vice-president also is normally assigned a football, but one declined it. Which one of the following demurred at control over America's nuclear forces: Nixon, Johnson, Humphrey, Agnew, Ford, Rockefeller, Mondale, Bush or Quayle?
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11. Are there any currently operational mobile launch control centers for US ICBMs other than aircraft, and if so, what are they?
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12. When the first US ICBM, the Atlas, was not fuelled for imminent flight, its tanks were maintained at high pressure. Why?
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13. What US air-to-ground missile was to be launched rearwards out of the tail of the plane, and what was the reason for this mode of operation?
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14. Which one or more of the following technologies was not first tested in Hitler's Germany?

__ ballistic missiles used on strategic targets

__ supersonic missiles

__ inertial guidance for missiles

__ multistage missiles

__ cruise missiles used on strategic targets,

__ underwater launches from subs

__ antiballistic missile missiles.
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15. What country named several missiles after its large rivers?
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16. What country named some missiles after its wildflowers?
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17. The Jupiter C, the rocket that launched the Explorer satellite, was really a modified Redstone missile rather than a Jupiter. So why was it called Jupiter?
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18. War Games: If Minuteman launch control officers receive and validate an order to go, and one of the two officers balks, how should the other respond, according to correct procedure?
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19. Which intercontinental missile demonstrated its intercontinentalness by veering away from its US test range and landing in Brazil? This event formed the premise of which James Bond movie? Which research missile triggered a diplomatic emergency by heading off towards Cuba? Which Soviet strategic missile flew awry on a test and landed 1500 miles inside China? Which American intermediate range missile killed a Cuban cow and later visited China?
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20. In the vocabulary of reentry vehicle flight dynamics, the acronym "PDV" means

__ pre-damaged vehicle,

__ probable deployment velocity,

__ (particulate density)/viscosity.
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21. A World War II German antishipping missile had a guidance system involving a rod lowered to the surface of the ocean to sense the missile's altitude. Why was it never used?
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22. The US Army's Lacrosse was designed to be especially accurate, to land a nuclear war on enemy command bunkers, but during Nevada tests its guidance system messed up. The reason:

a) its heat sensors picked up its own exhaust gases and flew the missile in circles.

b) its receiver interpreted transmissions from taxicab radios as an order to return to its launch point.

c) its radar emissions activated garage door openers along its flightpath.
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23. In a Minuteman launch, what is the "twilight effect"?
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24. A Minuteman can be launched in a minute. True or false?
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25. When Ronald Reagan renamed the MX missile the "Peacekeeper," Russell Baker wondered whether it would be armed with ten "peaceheads." The new name did not catch on. History would have suggested that: a past strategic weapon was called the "Peacemaker" and that name did not stick either. What was the earlier weapon?
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26. An outdoor missile display has been set up at Norton Air Force Base. What kind of tree was planted among the exhibits? (Think about this one and get it. Hint: What's the Strategic Air Command motto?)
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27. Which intercontinental missile was launched with a radio transmitter in place of its thermonuclear warhead that broadcast worldwide a Christmas message of peace?
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28. Plans for the Atlas ICBM set a range requirement of 5500 miles. What analytical methodology was used to determine this specification?
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29. During the 1970's debate about the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty there was dismay that Soviet heavy missiles were much larger than the Minuteman. What consideration determined the Minuteman's size?
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30. What is an MX missile's modestyshield? In targeting parlance, what does it mean to say one's warhead is aimed at a bra factory? What does it mean to say that the Soviet missile-sub force has a higher indiscretionrate than American subs? How does your hotel power affect your indiscretion rate?
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31. If an ICBM warhead destroys another descending towards the same target, that's called fratricide.  What does it mean to say that a missile has been orphaned?
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32. "Sentinel" was the name of the proposed anti-missile system, but in midst of the fierce 1969 antiballistic missile debate, President Nixon and Secretary of Defence Laird changed the name to "Safeguard", perhaps because the latter sounded less militarist and more prudent. Ironically, several years earlier the name "Sentinel" had been assigned to a US ICBM but was removed on the opposite feeling, that its connotations were too passive for a weapon in the deterrent force. What was the Sentinel ICBM's forceful new name?
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33. Gyre and Gimbal in the Wabe: For sub missiles like Poseidon and Trident I that update their positions by a star fix,

__ several stars with maximum separation are chosen,

__ a single star is chosen, and one is as good as the next,

__ each missile is optimally assigned its own guiding star.
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34. Reentry body is to reentry vehicle, as head is to __trunk, __target, __latrine.
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35 What was the "bathtub of opportunity"?
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36. Which US remotely piloted vehicle was unveiled to the public by a gust of desert wind? Which US RPV was first shown publicly in a parade through the streets of Beijing?
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37. The sand-silo basing system would have buried an MX in a capsule 2000 feet deep at the bottom of a sand-filled tube. For launch, water would be pumped through the sand and the capsule would rise to the surface to discharge its missile. The cost, environmental impact, and security features were excellent and the installation could withstand an estimated five megaton blast directly overhead. What was wrong with the plan according to the Air Force?
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38. In the Multiple Protective Shelter System, Jimmy Carter's preferred basing for the MX, fake capsules were mixed in with real missiles and shuttled between concrete shelters like a shell game. What would have been in the fake capsules?
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39. According to General John Chain, head of the Strategic Air Command, MX rail garrison trains will be fixed up to look like well-worn trains, "rusty with peeling paint." However a functionally related and observable difference of MX-carrying trains will give them away. What is it?
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40. One basing mode suggested for the MX missiles was to mount them on small submarines, and station them in the Great Lakes to foil Soviet antisub forces. Whatever other problems this plan faced, it would violate an arms control treaty currently in force. How so?
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41. Canada found out about US plans to base this missile on Canadian territory only when the Pentagon publically released a map showing its planned base locations.
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42. A hypothetical MX has been sitting in its silo in Wyoming, another at the North Pole. Each is fired at the other's location. Their targets are equal distances away. Which is more likely to hit its target?
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43. Which missile justified the confidence of officials by flying across populated territory, even over a large city, to detonate its nuclear warhead 500 miles downrange? (Hint: Not an American missile. Has the US ever launched a strategic missile and had its nuclear warhead detonate at the end of its trajectory?)
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44. What sport should you practice if you want to win the covetted Blanchard Trophy?
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45. What was the organizational purpose of the group Extract Poisonous Nails?
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46. McGuire Air Force Base, in New Jersey, is the site of a concrete slab, six inches thick, three acres in area, surrounded by a barbed wire fence. What event does it commemorate?
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47. Blazing Silos: Which strategic missile exploded and contaminated the launch area with plutonium? Which missile along with its silo was destroyed by a falling wrench socket? Which rocket was launched by a bolt of lightning?
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48. On the Blink: During the Cuban missile crisis an experimental warning radar in Morristown, New Jersey, was pressed into service to watch for an attack from Cuba. Which rocket, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, did its untested electronics mistake for a Soviet missile rising from Cuba?
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49. (EI)2O: On your "silo farm" you have some "tractors". What country are you in?
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50. In the vocabulary of liquid propellant technology, what is a "hard start"?
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51. Titans are no longer operational, but at Green Valley, Arizona, one silo-with-missile remains intact as a museum. How is the existence of this missile handled within the proposed START agreement?
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52. The United States possesses a Soviet nuclear missile. How did it come by it?
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53. After the Titan II's were removed and their launch centers disabled, the sites stood for six months before an attempt was made to reclaim the land, because:

__ SALT conventions specified this interval to let the Soviet satellites check that the Titans were really gone.

__ Scrubbing crews were afraid that the hypergolic fuels in the Titan storage tanks had leaked during disassembly. The waiting period was necessary to be sure the chemicals had dissipated.

__ There was no economical way to fill up an empty silo, so the General Services Administration did not want to reclaim the land, and acted only after pressure from the local members of Congress.
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54. In line with the Scowcroft Commission Report, 50 MX missiles are installed in silos built for Minuteman IIs. An MX is about 40% wider than a Minuteman, so how can it fit inside?
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55. Looking Glass aircraft have the mission of collecting information on post-attack damage and taking over the firing of ICBMs. Why are they called Looking Glass?
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56. Below is the official Soviet picture of an SS-5 (the type that triggered the Cuban missile crisis). It was conveyed to the United States as part of the INF Treaty, so that American inspection crews would know one when they saw one.

The closest translation of the lettering on the missile is:

__"HANDLE WITH CARE",

__"THIS END UP",

__"DISPOSE OF PROPERLY."
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57. To say a nuclear weapon is "inherently one-point safe" means that it is designed so that if its chemical explosive shell were to detonate at one point, from the weapon being struck or dropped, for example, the impact could not cause a significant nuclear blast. Are all US ICBM warheads inherently one-point safe?
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58. Each B-2 bomber will be roughly worth its weight in gold, (unloaded, not including ground support equipment.) The Aquila surveillance drone was cancelled in 1987, but had the program gone ahead each one would have been worth its weight in __ silver __ gold __ platinum __ plutonium __ tritium?
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59. The largest warhead ever carried by a US missile was nine megatons, on the Titan II. The second largest warhead was still so big that its underground test had to be moved to Alaska. Which missile carried it? (Hint: not a surface-to-surface missile.)
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60. A problem with launching missiles underwater is getting them to the surface. Igniting the rocket engine inside the submarine, for example, will not do. An early plan for the Polaris missile had the submarine releasing a column of soap bubbles, and the missile rising up through the froth, which would be less dense than seawater. What is the present system?
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61. "I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. /The last scud of day holds back for me."
                                                                                                                -- Walt Whitman, Song of Myself.

Scud is not an acronym. What does the word mean? Why does the missile bear that name?
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62. During the Gulf War, a change was made in the software controlling the Patriot missile, specifically the altitude of the intercept point. What had been the problem?
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63. Essay question: In April 1991 an armed Sidewinder missile was recovered from a grassy area near a wharf in Sheboygan, Michigan, about twenty feet from shops and restaurants. It had a live warhead, its engine had been fired and its fuel was gone, it had lain there about a week. Invent a plausible scenario that brought it there.
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64. If "Peace is Our Profession" is SAC's motto, what is the motto of the US Navy ballistic missile submarine force?  (By the by, in the late 1980's SAC's motto was temporarily changed. To what?)
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65. "Goodness overcomes evilness," was the official motto of what critical event in the history of missilery?
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66. After the Gulf War, President Bush publicly offered thanks to the Creator for the Patriot missile. What passage from the Book of Jeremiah predicted the Patriot's success?
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67. The nosecone of the Navy's Trident missile is made of what material, and why?
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68. The Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules anti-aircraft missiles had a launcher that was quite heavy.  Rather than rotate the launcher towards the plane, the missile was launched almost vertically then headed off in the target's direction.  Why  almost vertically?
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69. Port and starboard: There are five levels of alert for US strategic forces, DEFCONs 1 to 5. Suppose DEFCON 1 has just been declared. You are an SSBN captain. Should you be preparing to return home or to execute your role in the SIOP?
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70. The first stage of a missile is __ the one on top, __ the one on the bottom.
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71. What was the first multiple warhead US missile? (Warning: this might be thought of as a trick question.)
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72. Extra bonus question: (Knowing the answer to this last one is very important. Confusion on it embarrassed President Reagan, so get it right and receive full credit for the quiz.) Submarine-launched ballistic missiles

__ can be recalled after launch __ cannot be recalled after launch.
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