DEFENCE AGAINST MISSILES

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28372, 3 September 1957, Page 13

DEFENCE AGAINST MISSILES

Britain To Test Rocket Interceptor

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) LONDON, September 2. Vital experiments in the development of a defence against the Russian intercontinental missile would be included in the atom tests at Marahnga later this month, the “Daily Express science writer said today

hnmh C1 ™ a t ™ tS J > j an 2 to ex P ,ode at least one atom bomb suspended from a tethered balloon. This bo jn b C <”>W be made small enough to be fitted in a milnl "J*? 811 * Wh ’ ch S° U,d be flred at an oncoming missile, the paper said. "

!t StS K at Maralinga were designed to show whether the bomb would be powerful enough to shatter the enemy missile or at least to blast it off course.

With the development of atomic and hydrogen bomb warheads light enough to be carried by fairly small guided missiles, hopes of producing a missile for defence purposes had risen, the correspondent, Chapman Pincher, said. Work on this type of weapon was row regarded as more important than the development of British or United States intercontinental missiles, the correspondent said.

Scientists had no hope of intercepting every rocket, but the blunting of a missile attack would g . the United States Strategic Air Force a better chance of full-scale retaliation.

Experiments were being made into new types of radar warning systems to give the earliest possible warning that an enemy rocket had been launched, the correspondent said.

The intercepting rocket would be fired by an electronic brain linked to the radar system.