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Jet Pioneer. Many of G.E.'s products seem to have little relation to one another, but the kinship is close. Since G.E.'s basic business is turbines, moving into jets only meant using turbines in a different system. G.E. built the engine for the first U.S. jet fighter in 1942, has done so much jet work that today it is ranked with Pratt & Whitney as the top jet producer. During the Korean war, 60% of all the jets in service had G.E. engines. The company powered the world's first Mach 2 bomber (Convair 6-58) and the world's first Mach 2 operational fighter (Lockheed F-IO4A Starfight-er). Its jet engines are scheduled to power the world's fastest commercial jetliner (Convair 880) and the first Mach 3 military aircraft (North American 6-70 and F-108). Far less spectacular, but of wide-reaching importance, is G.E.'s pioneering of the small jet engine, which may eventually bring the jet age to the nation's smallest airports.
From jet development G.E. stepped logically into missiles, has pushed ahead to second place (after General Dynamics) in total defense work. Hardly a missile rises from its pad that does not contain some G.E. part. G.E. is working on problems of re-entry for the Atlas and Thor missiles, on fire control and guidance for the Polaris, Sidewinder and Tartar, has armed and fused the warhead for the Army's Corporal, Honest John and Nike Hercules missiles.
Happy Fault. In atomics, G.E. got a head start in 1946, when it took over operation of the Hanford works from Du Pont. As early as 1946 it proposed the idea of a nuclear submarine, but the demobilizing Navy was in no position to make a decision then. G.E. developed a sodium-cooled reactor that eventually went into the atomic submarine Seawolf. But it proved less satisfactory than the pressurized-water reactor developed by Westinghouse, which has since concentrated on submarine propulsion, moved out well ahead of G.E. in this field.
Actually, G.E.'s initial failure worked to its advantage, gave it impetus to branch into fields largely ignored by other firms. It is already looking beyond atomic power by fission to the more revolutionary power of fusion—releasing energy by fusing together the nuclei of two atoms. Fusion, the energy that lights the stars, could provide man with virtually unlimited power. But no one will know whether fusion research is a success or failure for another three or four years, and any practical results will come years after that. Nonetheless, a company such as G.E. must commit itself to these grandiose projects, with no guarantee of success, if it hopes to survive another generation of doing profitable business. That fits in perfectly with Ralph Cordiner's concept of G.E. as a company of risk and opportunity. Says he: "Civilization is moved forward by restless people, not by those who are satisfied by things as they are."
* G.E.'s claims for the boiling-water reactor got backing from a seven-man team of international nuclear experts sponsored by the World Bank and the Italian government, which selected G.E.'s reactor for an Italian plant from among nine proposals from four countries.