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To: sonofstrangelove
Proton initially started life as a “super ICBM.” It was designed to throw a 100-megaton nuclear warhead over a distance of 13,000 km.

Not quite. The R-7 development started in 1953, when the Soviets didn't even have a 1Mt weapon. At the time it was thought the smallest megaton range staged thermonuclkear bomb would be 3-6 tonnes. ergo one BFICBM needed.

The 100Mt Tsar Bomba was a later 1961 device, primarily a Kruschev propaganda display. But if it had been actually deployed, the intended range would have been much shorter - 3-5 of them airdropped (in its 50Mt sans Uranium tamper form) ahead of the advancing Warpac forces in Europe in the event of unpleasantness breaking out. The biggest bomb ever built: a tactical weapon. True story.

22 posted on 04/11/2010 7:50:44 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (great thing about being a cynic: you can enjoy being proved wrong)
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To: Oztrich Boy

The program may have started in 1953 but they did not launch the first rocket until 1965


23 posted on 04/11/2010 7:53:05 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution."-Dr.Wernher Von Braun)
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To: Oztrich Boy

It was eventually utilized as a space launch vehicle. It was the brainchild of Vladimir Chelomei’s design bureau as a foil to Sergei Korolev’s N1 booster.With the termination of the Saturn V program, Proton became the largest expendable launch system in service until the Energia rocket first flew in 1987 and the U.S. Titan IV in 1989.


24 posted on 04/11/2010 7:54:27 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution."-Dr.Wernher Von Braun)
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To: Oztrich Boy

http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/proton_history_000707.html


25 posted on 04/11/2010 7:55:56 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution."-Dr.Wernher Von Braun)
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