The Flight of Big Annie

Twice before, "Big Annie"--as her caretakers called the Atlas--had had to be blown up just after launching. Since then the Russians had shot two Sputniks aloft, indicating a long Red stride in intercontinental missilery. As the crews at Cape Canaveral got Big Annie III ready for her try last week, they worked coolly, deliberately, as though they were determined not to think of the stakes. But they knew all right, and so did the whole base, as the red-eyed crewmen plodded home to snatch a sandwich and a couple of hours of sleep and then head back to work long hours through the day and night.

Finally, at 8:32 one morning last week, Big Annie's giant gantry was rolled ponderously away from the launching pad, leaving the black and white missile standing stark against the sky, her nose a full 80 ft. above the ground. Dozens of helmeted workers swarmed about her base, and a man climbed up to tinker with valves and connecting lines. A moment later plumes of mist rose from the base as fueling with liquid oxygen began.

At 9:25 the fueling was stopped; the telemetering equipment had to be corrected. Forty-five minutes passed. The skies darkened, and the long, laborious countdown was stopped again for the weather. Again it was resumed, and again stopped as a rain squall splashed overhead. At last the red warning light blinked, and the workers cleared the area. The 40-man firing team had long since begun operations 750 ft. away in a sand-covered concrete blockhouse. A mile away, on the roof of a hangar, stood B. G. (for Byron Gordon) MacNabb, hardbitten, respected ("I'm just a slave-driving bastard") operations manager for Convair, Big Annie's builder. Tuned with a headset to the countdown, MacNabb relayed the information to a teletype operator below, who in turn flashed it to Convair's San Diego headquarters.

"Go! Go! Go!" At 12:35 Big Annie was ready. On the north beach, three miles away, the wife of a man on the firing crew crossed her arms and said softly: "Oh, God, please make it go. Help Jerry make it go right." In three minutes flame welled up in the launching stand. "She's going!" howled a woman on the beach. Down dropped the last of Big Annie's moorings. A man cried: "She's off!" All along the beaches the chant picked up new voices, a soaring, surging chain reaction sent them into a recitative: "Go!" they yelled. "Go ... Go ... Go ..."

Big Annie lifted off smoothly, her twin orange exhaust tails bright against the overcast. Up she shot, straight into the first cloud layer at 3,000 ft. as the shock wave, like a thousand backfires, rumbled up the beach and welled over the spectators. MacNabb roared into his headset: "She's still going! She's still going! She's out of sight, and she's still going!" Bursting through the low clouds, Big Annie flashed into view again for a second or two, then bored into the clouds at 8,000 ft., her course true, her engines in harmony. "Damn!" yelled a man falling from his perch to the sand. "She'll make it!" Cried MacNabb wildly to an associate: "If you weren't so ugly, I'd kiss you!"

Farewell to Majesty. At 40,000 ft., her vapor trail steaming steadily behind her, Big Annie appeared once more to the watchers on the north beach.* Hoarsely they cheered, as if they had witnessed the farewell performance of some great star, till she disappeared. For this test Annie was flying only on her two outboard engines--each producing 135,000 Ibs. of thrust--and she was without her central sustaining engine. Before she crashed into the sea 500 miles away, she followed her programing perfectly, touching an altitude 100 miles above the earth at a speed of Mach 7 (comparable sea-level speed: a little more than 5,000 m.p.h.).

Over the Cocoa Beach area, the joy spread, as much among the natives and newsmen as among Convair's MacNabb and his crews. At the Starlite Motel, a sign went up in the bar: "We knew you could manage it." Drinks were on the house. Big Annie's caretakers admitted that they had Annie IV ready for test, had Annie III failed. That, after all, was only prudence in a high-stake game--even when you tried not to think of the stakes. And Big Annie had not failed them. "I never saw a more beautiful sight," said B. G. MacNabb as he sipped a Scotch-and-soda. "The only word for it was majestic."

* By week's end Test Center security officers embarked on a crackdown on beach-stationed bird watchers, banned radio telephones, cameras and binoculars, sent newsmen scurrying to find new observation points, fired a few civilian employees for talking too much.

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