Single stage vehicle adapted from Thor IRBM with no upper stage. Launches: 73. Failures: 10. Success Rate: 86.30% pct. First Launch Date: 26 January 1957. Last Launch Date: 18 March 1965. Launch data is: complete. Liftoff Thrust: 68,040 kgf. Liftoff Thrust: 667.20 kN. Total Mass: 49,340 kg. Core Diameter: 2.44 m. Total Length: 22.00 m. Development Cost $: 500.00 million. Launch Price $: 4.93 million. in 1985 price dollars. Total Development Built: 64. Total Production Built: 160. Flyaway Unit Cost $: 0.75 million. in 1958 unit dollars.

Sixty Thors were deployed to missile sites in Great Britain under Project Emily. Philip Payne worked for Rocketdyne as their manager in England. He recalls:

Those days I worked for Rocketdyne as the manager in England of Project Emily. Our mission: get 60 Thors aimed at Khrushchev�s privates. Things were going badly for lots of reasons, many of them lack of earnest concentration by many Americans in corporations as well as USAF. I was p....d and often loudly said so.

One day a dignified, little American man came to me at Feltwell, Cambridgeshire, England, site of the first squadron (if we could ever get it installed and checked out) and told me he heard I was the one to talk to find out what was wrong. I was bad on names then, in my youth and so for hours as I laid it on him, I did not realize until late in the day I was talking to the American Secretary of Defense, Charlie Wilson.

I was so unpolitical an engineer turned executive, that I did not bother to tell my company of this until, receiving a muted blast vis � vis Douglas, they told me. Douglas sent over Bill Duval to replace Earl Neff.....

Thereafter things improved. After a few years the Thors were withdrawn from Britain (and the Jupiters from Turkey) as part of the secret codicil of Kennedy�s deal to end the Cuban Missile Crisis.

• Model: Thor MG-18. Family: Delta.

  2 stage vehicle consisting of 1 x Thor DM-18A + 1 x MG-18 Apogee: 1,000 km. Liftoff Thrust: 668.00 kN. Total Mass: 50,000 kg. Core Diameter: 2.44 m. Total Length: 23.00 m.

• Model: Thor DM-18C. Family: Delta.

  Single stage vehicle Apogee: 500 km. Liftoff Thrust: 734.00 kN. Total Mass: 48,500 kg. Core Diameter: 2.44 m. Total Length: 22.00 m.

• Model: Thor DM-18A. Family: Delta.

  Single stage vehicle Apogee: 520 km. Liftoff Thrust: 668.00 kN. Total Mass: 48,900 kg. Core Diameter: 2.44 m. Total Length: 19.40 m.

• Model: Thor DM-18. Family: Delta.

  Single stage vehicle adapted from Thor IRBM with no upper stage. Liftoff Thrust: 68,040 kgf. Liftoff Thrust: 667.20 kN. Total Mass: 49,340 kg. Core Diameter: 2.44 m. Total Length: 22.00 m.

• Stage Number: 1. 1 x Thor DM-19 Gross Mass: 49,340 kg. Empty Mass: 3,125 kg. Thrust (vac): 77,367 kgf. Isp: 282 sec. Burn time: 165 sec. Isp(sl): 248 sec. Diameter: 2.44 m. Span: 2.44 m. Length: 18.42 m. Propellants: Lox/Kerosene No Engines: 1. LR-79-7 Status: Hardware.

Douglas Thor IRBM (XSM-75) was launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla., destroyed by range safety officer. The missile was actually on course throughout its flight. The console wiring error led the range safety officer to believe it was headed inland rather than out to sea, so he hit the destruct button.

• McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Home Page, Harvard University, 1997-present. Web Address when accessed: http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~jcm/space/space.html.
• Koelle, Heinz Hermann,, Handbook of Astronautical Engineering, McGraw-Hill,New York, 1961.
• Nicholas, Ted G., U.S. Missile Data Book, 1983, Seventh Edition, Data Search Associates, Fountain Valley, California, 1982..