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Upward Track. The flight path ahead is clear. Yet the U.S. economy, like the first early missiles themselves, may experience some failures and disappointments before it gets on the upward track again. For many companies, the initial months of 1958 may produce sharp production cuts, painful layoffs and lower profits. But if the fall is sharp, the bounce back may be even faster. For better or for worse, defense spending will quickly provide new thrust for the lagging business pace. Beyond, there is the many-sided U.S. economy, in which a fall in one industry is often balanced by a rise in another. Autos may slump next year, but the enormous highway program, which started slowly in 1957, will pick up momentum, producing new demands for men, machines and materials in 1958. Railroads are down, but housing has already had its recession and, since it was on the way up at year's end, should pick up more next year. Overlaying all, there is the mighty U.S. populace, whose growth is estimated at the rate of about 2,000,000 new consumers each year, and whose appetite, even in the record year with the dip at the end, knew no bounds.