A Missile Named Mac

6 5 4 3 2 1 [Music] 0 a missile named map that's me the telephone company has asked me to tell you what the people at Bell Telephone Laboratories and the Western Electric Company are doing for our government to guide ballistic missiles like me you know we travel at speeds of over 15,000 mph toward targets thousands of miles away of course hitting the target has always been a problem for us missiles take my great great great well let's just call him my oldest ancestor Rocky like all missiles Rocky had to be aimed and controlled before being [Music] fired then Along Came the arrow which had a bow and string as well as a man to aim and control this miniature missile [Music] later on the rifle was developed to guide a bullet the rifle barrel aimed and controlled the bullet as long as it was in the barrel but once the bullet left the barrel the little lead missile was completely on its own all of us ballistic type missiles are on our own after we leave the gun barrel stage of aim and control this rather primitive guidance system had to determine the distance and direction to the Target and just how hard to propel the missile my guidance system has a sort of brain too a computer on the ground and radar to keep track of me this mechanical master of mathematics has to know the exact distance to a Target that may be over 6,000 M away and to make the job more difficult the rotation of the earth keeps the distant Target moving to complicate the problem further I am traveling at a speed of 300 M a minute fast enough to get me from San Francisco to New York in about 10 minutes whether or not I hit the target is determined in about the first 5 minutes of flight that's how long my engines burn so that's how long I'm under control that's my gun barrel stage during this time I have to be guided in exactly the right direction to reach exactly the right speed that the instant my engines cut off and my nose cone is released because even if I'm aimed right if I am traveling one foot per second too fast or too slow and my engine's cut off my nose cone will miss the Target by a mile so you see long before I'm fired scientists and Engineers have figured out exactly what I should do to hit the target and have f the information into the computer this information includes distance effect of gravity my engine power Earth's rotation many things and it's all used in guiding me to my Target and controlling my speed now I'm going to let you in on just what is done in those first few critical minutes to make sure my nose cone reaches the target the computer will communicate with me by radio signals until my engines cut off okay okay here we go the computer plays out a series of directions which are radioed to me by a communication Link in the radar at the same time I send back a radar signal to show just where I am the part of the communication system I carry along with me might be compared to a robot which takes action whenever the computer orders a slight turn the engines are mounted on swiv when the order comes they turn me and straighten me out the engines act as a kind of Rudder steadying me and keeping me on the right path but what happens if I should get a bit off course oh you remember I am sending back a steady signal showing just where I am on the ground my changing position is sent to the computer many times a second watch how the computer gets me back on course the computer Compares everything I do with everything I should be doing as soon as it discovers the difference IT issues a correcting order so we have continuous two-way Communications many times a second orders from the computer are followed by the automatic pilot to keep me right on course in about 5 minutes I am aimed and going at just the right speed the computer tells my engines exactly when to cut off away there goes my first engine there goes the second now I'm out of the gun barrel stage my nose cone is on its own for the rest of the [Music] journey this system with a computer on the ground is called command guidance it's one of the most accurate systems ever invented while we missiles help the Armed Forces keep the peace we also serve as Rockets helping the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to put satellites in orbit boosting a satellite is much like launching a missile a satellite is just sent on a different Mission out where nature's laws keep it in orbit remember echo1 the first satellite used in experimental telephone Communications it was successfully inserted into orbit by the Bell laboratory's Western electric guidance system so were Explorer 10 and 12 launched to measure magnetic fields and the flow of energetic particles in space so was Tyrus which gathers and relays information about the path of hurricanes and violent storms and the bell systems tell star the first active experimental communication satellite was also put into orbit by the same precise guidance system that guides me Communications can be many things a longdistance call the guidance of a missile a phone call or a television program being relayed from a satellite hey there's the moon I may even be guided up there sometime in the future but no matter where I'm sent it's nice to know that this precise guidance system will guide me to my destination [Music]