ee He be able to carry experimental pods to be released in such a-metter7|as to provide high altitude observation points for the detonation. In particular, the Air Force was confident that they could do the work necessary to carry the pods on the appropriate time scale. Thus, the choice narrowed down to Polaris versus Thor, and eventually, c Starb&erd chose the Thor not only for their technical reasons and safety reasons, but because of a bit more confidence in the personnel who would be involved. Then, of course, came the blow after the task force was committed to the Thor we discovered that the original bright and shiney Thors had been given other programs and by then it was too late to go back to the Polaris without delaying the readiness date for the operation. LAA § However, the Air Force scrounged the country and eventually found :six essentially scrdfed Thors that Ctae + were being used as monuments jin front of Air Force-bases and other such things and set to work refurbishing them. allowing us one spare. Thus we had six Thors for five shots The five shots being the four actual detonations and one calibration shot ahead of time to make sure all the systems were working. During this same period of time, negotiations were entered into between the Task Force and the Bacitic Nissile Kange to furnish tracking and safety capabilities. PMR agreed to furnish that equipment and personnel,at the same time Sandia agreed to take on the job of producing the rv's, the associated circuitry not only for detonation but for destruct. At the suggestion of Schuster and Og le, Starbeard "drafted" Major Roger Ray designing and to assist in/setting up the electrical and human systems that would actually make the safety systems usable. Basically, PMR was to take on the range safety and missile destruct job, but the Task Force under Schuster and Ray would take on the device destruct job.