[Mr. Silverback]

By not being designed to specifications you seem to think are immutable. I recall the Soviets making extensive use of vaccuum tubes in their fighter aircraft well oast the 1970s...

OK, let's try thinking through this:

The "B" in "SLBM" stands for "Ballistic." The missile must acheive a ballistic trajectory to reach its target. To acheive that trajectory, it would have to reach a speed which makes it impossible for it to still be visible from Long Beach several minutes after the first sighting. Moreover, as you can see here...

...the object doesn't even travel far, and most of the photos in this overlay are taken after it finishes its "boost phase."

Building an SLBM like that would not be like building an interceptor with vacuum tubes in the radar. It wouldn't even be like building a transatlantic airliner with prop engines or wood and canvas construction. It would be like building a transatlantic airliner that carries 50 gallons of fuel, or an artillery shell that leaves the gun barell at 10 mph.

It is physically impossible for this object to be an SLBM and still be photographed several minutes after launch, much less in the same part of the sky with an off-the-shelf camera.

[justa-hairyape]

Riddle me this Sherlock. The wind speed and direction during that image taking was about 25-30 mph northwest to southeast. Notice how far the plume (top to bottom) is moved to the left. Why is a plane traveling at 500 MPH toward a spot located 35 miles to the south of the camera, not moving much ?

[papertyger]

It is physically impossible for this object to be an SLBM and still be photographed several minutes after launch, much less in the same part of the sky with an off-the-shelf camera.

What kind of camera was it?

[TigersEye]

From that overlaid set of pics that you show I can understand how the wind could blow the contrail to the south. What I don’t understand is how the wind blew the airplane itself so far south perpendicular to its line of flight. More so than its forward progress even.