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cruise missile
cruise missile low-flying, continuously powered offensive missile designed to evade defense systems. Although the German V-1 (1944) was a simple cruise missile, the cruise missile did not realize its potential until the 1970s, when the United States sought to develop a relatively inexpensive method...
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guided missile
guided missile self-propelled, unmanned space or air vehicle carrying an explosive warhead. Its path can be adjusted during flight, either by automatic self-contained controls or remote human control. Guided missiles are powered either by rocket engines or by jet propulsion . The American, R. H....
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firing
firing n. 1. the action of setting fire to something: the deliberate firing of 600 oil wells. 2. the discharging of a gun or other weapon: the prolonged firing caused heavy losses | no missile firings were planned....
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drone
drone or remotely piloted vehicle, a pilotless craft guided by remote control. Aircraft, ships, and land vehicles can be designed or outfitted as drones, although underwater vessels—both piloted and pilotless—are usually called submersibles . Small, relatively inexpensive military ...
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hull
hull n. the main body of a ship or other vessel, including the bottom, sides, and deck but not the masts, superstructure, rigging, engines, and other fittings. v. (usually be hulled) hit and pierce the hull of (a ship) with a shell or other missile. hulled adj.: a wooden-hulled narrowboat....
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Woomera-Maralinga
Woomera-Maralinga , town (1991 pop. 1,600), in the state of South Australia, S Australia, near Lake Torrens. It is the site of a missile-testing range used by Australia and its allies. Australia's first earth satellite was launched there in 1967. Nearby is a U.S. space tracking station.
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Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962, major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion , the USSR increased its support of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime, and in the summer of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev secretly decided to install ballistic missiles in Cub...
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Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), U.S. government program responsible for research and development of a space-based system to defend the nation from attack by strategic ballistic missiles (see guided missile ). The program is now administered by the Missile Defense Agency (originally the Strateg...
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Redstone Arsenal
Redstone Arsenal U.S. rocket research and development center, 38,781 acres (15,694 hectares), N Ala., W of Huntsville; est. 1941. One of the state's largest industrial enterprises, it includes the Army Missile Command, responsible for the army's rocket and guided missile program; the Army Missile a...
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nuclear weapons
nuclear weapons weapons of mass destruction powered by atomic, rather than chemical, processes. Nuclear weapons produce large explosions and hazardous radioactive byproducts by means of either nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. Nuclear weapons can be delivered by artillery, plane, ship, or ballisti...
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