Back during the cold war, did the US or Russian missiles use solid or liquid fuels? If the fuels were liquid, then wouldn’t you run into the same problem you would have with a lawnmower whose fuel goes stale?
Was this a problem? And if so, how was it addressed?
Yes it was a problem, the liquid propellant was caustic and the missile could only be fueled for 30 days before it would have to be emptied, most of the latter day American ballistic missiles went to a solid fuel, allowing a greater shelf life , while the russians stayed with liquid fuel for the most part for the land forces.
Declan
In short, yes (to both).
The U.S. evolved away from liquid fuels for its ICBM and SLBM fleets as quickly as it could. Mostly because liquid fuel is trickier to use-- you either have to fuel the missiles before launch, or keep them fueled. Either way, the risk of a catastrophic explosion in a silo or aboard a boat are worse than with solid fuel, which is typically much more stable.
The current generation of U.S. missiles-- the Minuteman III ICBM and the Trident SLBM-- are both solid-fueled.
The Soviets, on the other hand, stayed with liquid-fueled rockets for longer. The main reason for this is cost & technical simplicity-- liquid-fueled rockets are both cheaper and easier to manufacture than solid-fueled vehicles.
Also, there is a “first strike” element to liquid-fueled rockets: since many could not be kept fueled on the pad/in the silo, it took longer to fire them off than to launch solid-fueled rockets (which just ignite and go). If you’re looking for a deterrent force where speed of launch is essential, you’re probably more interested in a solid fuel-based arsenal.
As always, lots more at Wikipedia.
Simplest answer is both. The first missiles were liquid fueled, but fueled with liquid oxygen (as oxidizer)–which can’t be stored in the missile (it boils off), and can’t be used in a silo (so missiles had to be brought to launching position, fueled, and then launched). e.g. SM-65 Atlas - Wikipedia
Then, storable liquid fuels were developed–but they had their own problems–namely that the storable fuels were very toxic and corrosive (not to mention the fact that they were generally hypergolic–they’d ignite when they met one another)–so those were nasty to deal with, hard to maintain, but could be stored and fired from silos. E.g. LGM-25C Titan II - Wikipedia
Solid rockets had always been around (think the 5" rockets fired from aircraft in WWII), but were only used in later ICBMS. (as they’re both storable and far less nasty than comparable liquid fuels). E.g. LGM-30 Minuteman - Wikipedia. They have their own problems (it’s easy to have a liquid rocket with variable thrust, and a big technical challenge to do so with a solid rocket), but as others have noted, they’re what we use today.
Thank you for the responses. I have a follow up question.
Back in the day, the Soviets used to have a parade every year where they displayed missiles etc. Obviously one would not want to use a fueled, armed missile for such a display. My feeling is that they must have used real missiles which were not fueled or armed. Another possibility is that they had dummy missiles for use in parades?
Does anyone know the straight dope on this?
Probably dummy missiles , just the shell with nothing inside. No reason to use a real one.
As usual can’t remember the details. But I beleive the shift from liquid to solid fuel rockets was a major milestone in the arms race. I think the soviets thought of it first and so had a breifly had the edge technologically against the US.
Big solid rockets were on the first US shuttle launch in 81, not sure how long before that they were used in the US.
The minuteman-I was introduced in 1962 (after a first test launch in 1961). It was a big solid rocket. (It’s actually a better example than the shuttle SRB–which isn’t an independent craft, and can’t get to space on its own–they’re boosters for a larger system.)
Another problem was the extreme sensitivity of the fuel in liquid fuel missiles. There were a couple of accidents involving Titan II missiles in Arkansas, one that I remember hearing about in 1980 where an airman dropped a wrench down the silo and it caused a leak in one of the fuel tanks, leading to an explosion during the recovery process. Solid fuels are much more stable.