It's Launch Time! Trivia Quiz

Answer: fire arrows

Typically, normal arrows were shot by bows by various cultures' warriors, but "fire arrows" were arrows that were tweaked to carry a source of fire at the head of the arrow, some type of a combustible material, a flammable liquid, or tar, or cloth soaked in oil, that was then lit up and then shot with the bow at their target.

They would sail through the air on fire and then often explode on impact, sort of like a Molotov cocktail if it was constructed that way. They were effective as one can imagine against wooden ships with their sails.

Answer: Mysore, India

These crude early versions of rockets seen in the 18th century were launched from a tube and carried a combustible warhead, typically made of gunpowder, aka black powder that would explode with greater force upon impact. They were employed in long-range attacks against forts or ships. Tipu Sultan ruled the kingdom of Mysore in southern India from 1782 to 1799.

In territorial conflicts and trade disputes with the British East India Company, he used these early rockets to fire upon British ships. Earlier in the 18th century, German field artillery colonel Christoph Friedrich von Geissler built rockets in 1730, that weighed 55 to 120 pounds.

He even published a book about rockets in 1718, described experiments with rockets back in 1688.

Answer: William Congreve

Drake, Raleigh, and Hawkins were all 16th-century British officers, and none shared a name with a Restoration playwright. Congreve's rockets, most likely modified from rockets fired upon the British in early conflicts with Mysore, were used in Royal Navy attacks against French ships at Boulogne in 1805 and 1806.

In 1807, Congreve and sixteen civilian munitions suppliers witnessed 300 of Congreve's metal-cased rockets fired upon Danish territory in the Bombardment of Copenhagen, igniting houses and other buildings. By The War of 1812, Great Britain had introduced rocketry to the New World.

Answer: Werner von Braun

Weegener, Hochstetter, and Oppel were actually more terra firma-concerned, as they were German geologists. In 1934; Wernher von Braun and his colleagues developed long-range, liquid-fueled missiles, and by the end of that year, they had successfully launched two liquid-fueled A2 rockets two miles up in the air. By 1944, German V-1 rockets were thwarted by British barrage balloons which had cables tethering them meant to interfere with low-flying aircraft--it wasn't meant to fulfill the purpose of foiling rockets, but the balloon cables turned out to be an effective early, low-tech missile defense system. From 1945-46, the United States began studying missile defense options, including "energy beams" and interceptor missiles.

Answer: Leonid Brezhnev

In 1957, the Soviet Union tested the first intercontinental ballistic missile, aka the ICBM. Two years later, in 1959, the United States answered by testing their Nike Zeus land-based missile defense system. The Soviets had their own antiballistic weapons system, and in 1961, their V-1000 missile first successfully intercepted a target when it hit their R-12 missile launched for the purpose of running this test.

In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was drafted by the United Nations, the signatories of which (over 110 countries) promised not to put nuclear weapons into orbit. On March 26, 1972, Nixon and Brezhnev signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, stipulating that the United States and the Soviet Union were permitted to have a maximum of 1,054 ICBM launchers and 740 SLBM launchers each.

Answer: Star Wars

When President Reagan offered up his vision of SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, a missile defense system intended to render nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete", it was commonly referred to by the public and in the press, as "Star Wars"-after all it was the height of the George Lucas cultural juggernaut with "Return of the Jedi" released in theatres that year.

The United States spent about $415 billion testing various missile defense programs aimed at both short-range and ICBMs. Critics felt that with so many questionable results in the testing, it wasn't worth the risk it posed to provoking unending escalating build-ups, and the expense, which of course would eat into so many other areas the government could be spending money on. Plans to deploy a nuclear shield, they said, would get in the way of the more important task of cutting nuclear stockpiles.

A few years later in 1989, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney offered up his own administration's vision, telling Congress about "brilliant pebbles", that is, satellite-based mini missiles as part of the Bush presidency's focus, an approach still supported by some conservatives.

Answer: Scud

The Scud missile was first developed by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. Scud is actually a western term for them, not what the Soviets called it, but its development began with the R-11 in the late 1950s, and was operational by 1959. North Korea adopted them, firing seven Scud-type missiles on the Fourth of July 2019 as a test. In response, the United States sent a huge sea-based X-Band radar system to Hawaii which can guide underground interceptor missiles, toward long-range missiles in flight. The vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman, Marine General James Cartwright, said he had "90% plus" confidence in the system.

Patriot missile development began in the late 1960s, with the first operational deployment in 1984. The Tomahawk was developed in the 1970s and was employed by the U.S. Navy in the 1980s. The Trident missile was first introduced in the early 1980s.

Answer: Barack Obama

In 2000, presidential candidate George W. Bush proposed a blanket missile defense system for the United States and its allies to protect against "rogue states or accidental launches", a system that some called "SDI 2.0".

In 2009, President Obama signed the 2010 military budget, which gutted military spending on the development of missile defenses by over a billion dollars. This action put an end to the Bush administration's technology proposals, such as the "multiple kill vehicles" cluster of lightweight missiles that could shoot from interceptors at incoming rockets, missiles and laser beams.

In 2010, the U.S. sent Patriot missiles to four Arab states and Aegis cruisers with missile-defense radar to the Persian Gulf, supporting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's mention of perhaps a "defense umbrella" in the Middle East. Russia responded by selling S-300 truck-mounted interceptors to Iran.

Answer: Israel

The United States helped Israel develop the David's Sling system, accompanying their Iron Dome system which intercepts short-range rockets and artillery shells, and their Iron Beam laser air defense system. Both those latter two systems were developed by the Israeli defense contractor Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. David's Sling was used for the first time in a combat situation on July 23, 2018, when they thought two Syrian missiles were heading for Israel, but it turned out the missiles were part of an internal dispute in Syria and did not cross the border. Israeli defense technology has also developed the ability of the public's cell phones to receive warnings in areas it has calculated expected strikes by rockets.

Answer: Hypersonic ballistic tracking from space

Those two military agencies are co-developing hypersonic ballistic tracking from space-sensor satellites, that will track and target other hypersonic weapons. The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces held a hearing about the fiscal year 2024, and Air Force General Glen D. Van Herck testified regarding requests for this development.

The Space Force and the Missile Defense Agency are co-developing hypersonic ballistic tracking from space. He cited that Russia and China continue to investigate many new advanced missile capabilities, including hypersonic weapons designed to be undetectable across globe-wide strike targets including North America. Navy Vice Admiral Jon A. Hill, director of the Missile Defense Agency also supported the need saying, "Hypersonic weapons are extremely difficult to detect and counter given the weapons' speed and maneuverability, low flight paths and unpredictable trajectories," and that "Hypersonic weapons challenge NORAD's ability to provide threat warning and attack assessments for Canada and the United States."