Christopher Gainor is the author of To a Distant Day: The Rocket Pioneers and Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and the Space Race. He is the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly.
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The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), designed to quickly deliver thermonuclear weapons to distant targets, was the central weapons system of the Cold War. ICBMs also carried the first astronauts and cosmonauts into orbit. More than a generation ... SEE MORE