Nike-X was an anti-ballistic missile system developed in the 1960s by the US Army to counter the Soviet Union's intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). Tested but never deployed, it was a response to the problems with Nike Zeus, whose radars could not tell the difference between warheads and decoys until it was too late to launch. Nike-X would wait until the last moment and launch a very fast missile known as Sprint (pictured); the entire engagement would last only a few seconds, at altitudes as low as 25,000 feet (7.6 km). While technically capable, a Nike-X missile would have been very expensive, as much as 20 times the cost of the ICBM at which it was fired. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, felt the Soviets would respond by building more ICBMs, leading to a new nuclear arms race. In 1967, Nike-X was cancelled in favor of a simpler system, Sentinel.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike-X
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1805:
The Lewis and Clark Expedition became the first European Americans to sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Falls_(Missouri_River)
1935:
In one of the biggest upsets in championship boxing, underdog James J. Braddock defeated Max Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Braddock
1952:
Soviet warplanes shot down a Swedish military Douglas DC-3A-360 Skytrain carrying out signals intelligence gathering operations, which was followed by the shootdown of a Catalina flying boat searching for the Skytrain three days later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalina_affair
1982:
Fahd became King of Saudi Arabia, succeeding his half-brother Khalid upon the latter's death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahd_of_Saudi_Arabia
2013:
Some of the closest advisors and collaborators of Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas were arrested for corruption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Czech_political_corruption_scandal
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
liminal: 1. Of or pertaining to a beginning or first stage of a process. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liminal
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
I'm nothing, I'll always be nothing. I can't even wish to be something. Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me. --Fernando Pessoa https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa