From the U.S.S. Norton Sound, a converted Navy seaplane tender cruising the Pacific south of Hawaii, came a bit of rather ominous news. A Viking rocket (body by Glenn L. Martin Co. propulsion by Reaction Motors, Inc.) had been launched from its deck to an altitude of 106.4 miles. This is only a few miles short of the record for single-stage rockets (114 mi.) made by the larger German V2.
The V-2 is 46 ft. long, 5½ ft. in diameter, and weighs 28,000 lbs. fully fueled. The Viking is 45 ft. long, only 2½ ft. in diameter, and weighs only 11,000 lbs. According to an observer on board the Norton Sound, the rocket launched from the ship carried a 1,000-lb. payload of instruments for studying high-altitude cosmic rays. It might have carried a bomb (perhaps a lightweight-model atom bomb).
On the basis of comparable figures for the V2, the Viking might have taken the bomb to a target more than 200 miles away. If the Norton Sound were stationed at the proper point off the U.S. East Coast, Vikings could hit either New York, Philadelphia or Washington, or all three.
A submarine equipped to launch such rockets (such craft are probably abuilding) could do the same. In fact, it is more than likely that rockets could be launched from submarines far below the surface. Such rockets rise vertically at first, are set on course to their targets by pre-set gyroscopic controls. They should not be bothered much by underwater launching. In World War III, the first sign of an attack on U.S. coastal cities could be a flight of rockets bursting at night out of an unruffled sea.