The Rocket Boys

INSIDE the rear of a tan Army Hummer, a technician sat in a black swivel chair and stared at a computer screen. It was still dark out at 5:19 in the morning, local time, but he could see everything in the skies above the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Bright green lines outlined neighboring states and marked friendly units on his electronic map. Suddenly, a red triangle blipped onto the monitor. A radar positioned nearby had picked up an object launched from the north. The computer quickly identified it as a threat and calculated its course. The man lightly touched a black trackball attached to his keyboard, moved a pointer on the screen to the triangle, and clicked.

A missile blasted into the pre-dawn sky, launched from a canister mounted on a truck a few hundred yards away. It broke the sound barrier several times over as it roared upward. In a matter of seconds, it was miles above the desert floor. A booster rocket burned up and blew off, leaving only a five-foot-long kill vehicle hurtling toward its target. Then a shroud at its tip fell away to reveal an infrared seeker. The missile literally opened its eyes and spotted its goal: a Hera rocket simulating a Scud. A few thrusts from motors on the interceptor’s side set the two projectiles on a collision course. They hit head-on, sparking a brief but brilliant flash. Then darkness returned to the sky. Except for a few small scraps of twisted metal plummeting downward, nothing was left. The missiles had vaporized. On the ground, 40 miles below, people cheered.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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INSIDE the rear of a tan Army Hummer, a technician sat in a black swivel chair and stared at a computer screen. It was still dark out at 5:19 in the morning, local time, but he could see everything in the skies above the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Bright green lines outlined neighboring states and marked friendly units on his electronic map. Suddenly, a red triangle blipped onto the monitor. A radar positioned nearby had picked up an object launched from the north. The computer quickly identified it as a threat and calculated its course. The man lightly touched a black trackball attached to his keyboard, moved a pointer on the screen to the triangle, and clicked.

A missile blasted into the pre-dawn sky, launched from a canister mounted on a truck a few hundred yards away. It broke the sound barrier several times over as it roared upward. In a matter of seconds, it was miles above the desert floor. A booster rocket burned up and blew off, leaving only a five-foot-long kill vehicle hurtling toward its target. Then a shroud at its tip fell away to reveal an infrared seeker. The missile literally opened its eyes and spotted its goal: a Hera rocket simulating a Scud. A few thrusts from motors on the interceptor’s side set the two projectiles on a collision course. They hit head-on, sparking a brief but brilliant flash. Then darkness returned to the sky. Except for a few small scraps of twisted metal plummeting downward, nothing was left. The missiles had vaporized. On the ground, 40 miles below, people cheered.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.