North American XB-70 Valkyrie

I LOVE this bird. Recently I downloaded a document discussing all the crazy whacky projects the Vakyrie inspired. Some of them completely bonkers (VSTOL - yes - parasail landing, airliner, cargo aircraft, and even SUPERSONIC REFUELING.)

Have a look at it here

media.defense.gov/2020/Nov/23/2002540204/-1/-1/1/B-70%20VARIANTS.PDF

My favorite one is air-launch platform for orbital rockets. Takes 9000 m/s to go to Earth orbit: dropping a rocket from an aircraft flying at mach 3 substracts 2000 m/s of that. Well, the B-70 still is the one and only aircraft large enough for that job. SR-71 was way too small.
So they planned to strap a Minuteman ballistic to a Valkyrie: and that contraption could have send a Gemini capsule to Earth orbit, 3000 kg to orbit. And Partially reusable, with that.

It plays an important role in my "magnum opus" story, Dark Moon Rising.

By the 60's metric it didn't stood a chance. Bombers were shifting from 70 000 ft to 70 ft above the ground to avoid being slaughtered by SAM, Gary Power or Vietnam style. The B-70 simply can't shift to tree tops, unlike the slower B-52. 

By the late 60's SRAM was the first viable cruise missile, but the real breakthrough was the Tomahawk AGM-86 and 109 - after 1977. 15 years too late for the Valkyrie.

There was another option, however: Skybolt. There were plans for B-70s to carry Skybolt underwings at subsonic speed (no other option with that missile) and fire that outside the Soviet Union: 1000 miles range.

Once the Skybolt fired, drop the wing pylons, go to Mach 3, and fire a volley of SRAMs from the payload bay.

This looks like a Gemini mated to a Centaur hydrogen stage. The combination of Valkyrie, Centaur booster stage, and Gemini, would be pretty awesome. Although pretty dangerous, too: with all the kinetic heating at mach 3, the Centaur could go KABOOM and ruin the party...

You are giving me ideas. IT is possible to burn hydrogen into jet engines, it is actually better than kerosene.

Hmmm... B-70 with 4*hydrogen GE4, dropping a centaur... should be able to deliver a big payload to orbit...

Did not know that, must read over it.

The C4I arrangements for the ICBM and SLBM forces were rather expensive, even if the missiles themselves were cheap.

The speed difference was 8 times, which doesn’t really make a difference, but ICBMs aren’t necessarily invulnerable, even from the position of 1959.

The Politico article is fairly littered with inaccuracies and mischaracterisation of the political and strategic positions of multiple figures (Ike being a proponent of conventional weapons and brush fire wars is a new one). Perhaps the most amusing section was the claim that Kennedy and McNamara “ struggling to convert U.S. defense to a less provocative and more cost-effective “counterforce” or limited war posture” - there are at least four errors in that sentence alone. O’Hanlon’s contention that a nuclear war wasn’t winnable in 1962 is blithely accepted without any consideration or refutable. Talking about some strange concept of 150 airborne Valkyries being used as stand off weapon platforms doesn’t compute with anything I’ve read. Ultimately, it is a partisan view of a contentious issue with a very clear outline of who the reader should view as the goodies and the baddies. I would recommend “Decisions of Robert S. McNamara” for a more measured look at the issue.

Another issue is that bombers can be pulled back from the brink, whereas there isn’t a recall for missiles when fired. From the position of the late 1950s and the New Look, everything was nuclear, so that was less of an issue.

A penetrator bomber can go low below radar and/or use stealth, as they did in @. They can also fight their way in by hitting SAM sites and radars with stand off weapons and in concert with missile strikes from other shorter range assets. Even in the pre SIOP days, there was still coordination.

It wasn’t a path that was fully explored or taken in @, although we can see some of the weapons systems and warheads in an examination of the 1960s. Ultimately, there was not a full scale nuclear exchange to test the efficacy of various approaches.