March 1946

From The Space Library

Fleet Adm. William D. Leahy sent memorandum to the Secretaries of the War and Navy Departments on a national program for development of guided missiles.

AAF established Project Rand as separate department of Douglas Aircraft Co. plant at Santa Monica, Calif., to study supersonic aircraft, missiles, and earth satellites.

Navy successfully flight tested XSAM Talos surface-to-air guided missile.

USAAF established initial program on ballistic missile defense, a contract for study of interceptor weapon to cope with V-2-type In April a second contractor began study of defense against true ICBM.

Kenneth Gatland chairman of the CBAS and now founder of the renewed BIS continues his summary of rocket propulsion in Practical Mechanics magazine. In this issues he talks about rocket assisted take-off.