Science: Missile Target

One trouble with antiaircraft guided missiles has been that they have had nothing satisfactory to shoot at. Pilotless aircraft, usually old crates or small models, cannot fly high enough to reach the operating altitude of modern bombers, and real high-flying aircraft are too expensive to sacrifice.

Last week the Navy told how it solves the target problem with Pogo, a cheap gadget developed at New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. When the control center at White Sands Proving Ground wants a target for its deadly missiles to kill, it signals the crew of a target launcher parked out on the desert. A small, solid propellant rocket roars into the sky. When it reaches 40,000 feet or higher, a spring pushes its nose off, releasing a parachute whose silk is covered with a thin film of silver. The silver reflects radar waves like the skin of an enemy aircraft. As the parachute drifts down slowly, the missiles climbing up from below attack it intelligently and blow it to shreds.