Document created: 1 December 2007
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2007

Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon by Chuck Walker with Joel Powell. Apogee Books/Collectors Guide Publishing (http://www.apogeespacebooks.com), 1440 Graham’s Lane, Unit no. 2, Burlington, Ontario L7S 1W3, Canada, 2005, 304 pages, $29.95 (softcover).

In Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon, Chuck Walker tells the story of the development of the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from an insider’s perspective. The work captures well the importance of the Atlas rocket as both a ballistic missile and space-launch vehicle. One of three major launch systems developed in the 1950s by the Department of Defense (DOD) that found both military and commercial uses, Atlas began with the US Army Air Corps’ request for proposal in October 1945. By 10 January 1946, Consolidated-Vultee’s (Convair) engineers, under the leadership of Belgian-born Karel Bossart, had submitted their proposal for a 6,000-nautical-mile ballistic missile. New technologies proposed for the missile included extremely low structural weight through the use of steel-monocoque, single-wall construction tanks kept rigid by internal tank pressure; a state-of-the-art rocket motor with unique gimbals to help control attitude; a detachable payload or warhead section; and nearly single-stage-to-orbit performance through the “stage-and-a-half” approach of jettisoning the booster engines rather than a full stage during the ascent. On 19 April 1946, Convair received a contract in the amount of $1,893,000 for fabricating and testing 10 missiles to verify Bossart’s innovative concepts. But the Atlas program was stillborn; DOD cutbacks forced termination of the contract in July 1947.

With renewed international tensions in 1951, the DOD gave Convair a new contract to design a ballistic missile incorporating the basic features already validated. In 1953 Convair presented a plan to the Air Force for a full-fledged development program, and in January 1955 it received the go-ahead to develop what was called at the time MX-774. At Convair the project was known as Model 7 (in Russia, Korolev was then working on the competing R-7 ICBM—evidently both sides wanted to use the lucky number). In September 1955, faced with intelligence reports of the Russians’ progress on their ICBM, the DOD gave Atlas the highest national development priority. The project became one of the largest and most complex production, testing, and construction programs ever undertaken. Benefiting from the hard-driving management of Brig Gen Bernard A. Schriever, who managed the project for the Air Force, Atlas became the first ICBM in the US arsenal. It underwent its first test-fire on 11 June 1955, and a later-generation rocket became operational in 1959.

Although replaced as a ballistic missile in 1965, the Atlas has enjoyed a significant career as a space launcher thereafter, with more than 440 launches to its credit. It served as the launch vehicle for the orbital Mercury flights, sending John Glenn, Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter, and Gordon Cooper into orbit in 1962–63. With the use of Agena and Centaur upper stages, the Atlas also became the medium-lift workhorse for American human, planetary, and geosynchronous-orbit space missions. After a reengineering effort in the last decade of the twentieth century, Atlas V continues to operate as one of the critical expendable launch vehicles flown by the United States.

As should be obvious, this important story is worthy of serious historical attention. Unfortunately, Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon gives it only a partial telling. Essentially a memoir of an engineer who worked on the program, the book relates certain aspects of the Atlas story involving Chuck Walker quite well but gives short shrift to the larger context for the weapons system’s development and employment. It is almost exclusively an account of the Convair experience, based on personal recollection and interviews with colleagues. This is especially disappointing because of the broadness of the Atlas history. The study should examine not only the technical issues that Convair wrestled with (which it does relatively well) but also many other aspects of the rocket’s history. For instance, it should cover the political story of Atlas’s origins and development by exploring the interservice rivalries between the Air Force and Army concerning ballistic-missile development (such as the challenging of Atlas’s inflatable structure concept by the Army’s Wernher von Braun) and the interorganizational rivalries between the Atlas project and the competing Titan effort. Also critical is discussion of the management of the Atlas program—the first to use the systems-management concept and configuration control, with Simon Ramo (of what would eventually become TRW, Inc.) overseeing systems integration.

A number of good books address the history of ballistic-missile development and operations, David K. Stumpf’s Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program (University of Arkansas Press, 2000) representing the gold standard for recording one ICBM program’s history. Although Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon provides some useful technical details about the missile’s development, it does not measure up to Stumpf’s outstanding work on the Titan. The history of the Atlas program remains to be told.

Dr. Roger D. Launius
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC