Finally, something else that comes up when I google “Thor Rocket” that isn’t related to a buff blonde man and a raccoon.

Going a little further down the rabbit hole - Telstar 1, which was launched on a Thor Delta (DM-19), was killed by the Starfish test which itself was launched by a Thor. The God of Thunder giveth, the God of Thunder take the away…

For those curious about the t-shirt...... It's referring to all the ways you can die in a video game called The Long Dark, by a company called Hinterland Studios. Hinterland also sells the t-shirt. (Or at least they did, pre-pandemic. No idea what their status is now.)

Any decision of the Thor IRBM should include is sister rocket the Jupiter IRBM. The sibling rivalry between the two developments for which was two nearly identical rockets was legendary. The Jupiter team, under the direction of Wernher von Braun built the better more reliable rocket initially. The Jupiter program was more successful due to far better testing and preparations. The Jupiter missiles were also used in a series of suborbital biological test flights. The Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets were manufactured by using a single Jupiter propellant tank, in combination with eight Redstone rocket propellant tanks clustered around it, to form a powerful first stage launch vehicle. It could be said Saturn I and IB were derivatives of the Jupiter program. The Jupiter MRBM was also modified by adding upper stages, in the form of clustered Sergeant-derived rockets, to create a space launch vehicle called Juno II. It launched Pioneer 3, Pioneer 4, Explorer 7, Explorer 8, and Explorer 11. One of the two rocket programs would have been canceled due to their near identical performance and Thor having the significant higher failure rate probably would have been the canceled program. However, after the Soviet launches of Sputnik 1-2 in late 1957, US Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson announced that both Thor and Jupiter would go into service as his final act before leaving office. This was both out of fear of Soviet capabilities and also to avoid political repercussions from the workplace layoffs that would result at either Douglas or Chrysler if one of the two missiles were canceled. All very interesting rocket history.

My father worked for Chrysler aerospace from 1958 through the end of Skylab . He started with NACA working at Langley AFB .He assisted with development of grooved runways for jets .Every time I drive on grooved pavement I am reminded of his contribution.I still have his old Chrysler hard hat,Skylab Medal and NACA pin.

There is nothing more permanent than temporary situations.

Thanks Scott, for putting this together. I worked on the Block5d DMSP Weather satellite program in 79-81. We launched the Thor from SLC 10 West at Vandenberg AFB. I was the upper stage console operator. One of 25 blue suit enlisted launch crew members I the AF, I had 3 stripes! My all time favorite job!

Nice that you mentioned Telstar. We at Goonhilly are celebrating 60 years since that first transatlantic communications test via satellite, which we received with our aerial 1(GHY1).

My father, Col. RW Walton (Ret), was the launch coordinator of the first all military crew to put a satellite in orbit (wx sat for Russian air space SAC). The sat was on a Thor our to Vandenberg on March 17, 1965. I was 15 yo and had no clue of that compliment as it was classified. I have a photo of the Thor on the launch pad.

A friend of mine, the late Dick Morrison, helped develop that original Thor in record time. Morrison was one of America's post WWII rocket pioneers.

A couple years ago I was working right next to Goddard and a snowstorm was about to hit so everything was closed and there was nobody around. I went and got a sub on my lunch break and snuck around back into the Rocket garden behind the visitor’s center and ate a meatball sub using their entire stacked Thor Delta as a parasol. Good times. Cool looking rocket. 10 out of 10 would trespass again.

Thanks for this episode ! I spent the last 8 years of my USAF career stationed at Vandenberg AFB, and was able to explore all of those old Thor launch sites shown in your video. A surprising amount of the old Thor (And Atlas) launch infrastructure was still present when I left the base back in the mid 2000's. Some of the launch sites were re-purposed for other programs. I did not know about Ground Guidance being used, that is new to me, but, I do know Atlas used that system, or, at at least some of the old Atlas systems did.

Even after watching Scott for nearly 10 years, starting with KSP tutorials; I still want to fire up the game and play. Especially when he does videos on early US rockets like these. Scott, I credit you with my ever growing knowledge of orbital mechanics. You taught me WTH hyper-golic fuel is. And, so much more. I could go on and on. I think I speak for a majority of your viewers when I say that I appreciate all you do to help educate people on really complicated stuff.

Such unique looks on those stub-nosed Thor-DM18As, as well as the long 'lance' on the Thor-Able 2s. Definitely icons of the early Space Age.

7:28 that Lockheed ad for the Agena stage is classic. You could do a whole video about the Agena, which was a real workhorse for America in the early days of spaceflight.

After that nuke launch failure, Johnston island became the world's only open-cast plutonium mine.

I love videos like this about the history of launch systems, please keep making more of them

This is one of many reasons I love this channel, thank you as always for the content!

Wonderful video as always, Scott. Great to see the Thor getting its story told in detail: there are so many early shots of Thor failures -- many on or near the launchpad -- that its later successes are often overlooked.

Scott, another excellent video with Ed Kyle’s detailed drawings.

I absolutely love your channel.Mr Manley. Great stuff EVERYTIME.

Outstanding video. I remember the Thor / Delta for its reliability in so many different roles. What tremendous value its team delivered over the years! Thank you, Scott, for highlighting this important piece of our nation's technological and security history.

OK Scott, I expect a full 30 min video on the Delta series !!! I worked for Thiokol Huntsville from 87-92, as a Project Engineer (1 of 3) in the Castor Office. Then we were working CastorIVa for the 6900 series. We helped launched GPS. I was on pad17b helping McDac prep for the first launch (my first business trip) of DeltaII with Castor IVAs. IIRC we built over 210 CastorIVAs for DeltaII, with 100% success. Those CastorI motors were bleeding edge, they would burn out all the insulation and then about 1/4" of steel on the nozzle - talk about maximum impulse and minimum dead weight. We had a great team, but they wanted it all moved to Utah, so they shut us down.

Thanks Scott, loved this review of the Thor booster history. You obviously did your homework on this. Awesome video.

I was the last USAF Thor Program Manager. The last launch was in 1980 and we shut the program down in 1981 because the final Thor payload, DMSP Block 5D-2, had gotten larger and heavier and moved on to converted Atlas E ICBMs. The mandatory use of the Shuttle meant that no one was designing payloads capable of being launched by Thor, and although I often heard the claim that, "There are payloads out there for Thor but you are just not looking for them hard enough!" that was not just true. You would have thought there were homeless people wandering the streets with spacecraft under their arms, people who would have been healthy, happy and productive if they could have just found a rocket. When we shut the program down we had four intact LV-2D boosters, basically the last of the SM-75's brought back from England, and five SLV-2A boosters. We also had an LV-2D fuel tank engine section and an SLV-2H fuel tank and engine section; the LOX tanks from those boosters had been used in ground tests to determine the vulnerability of ballistic missiles to lasers. After the loss of the Shuttle Challenger in 1986 the latest built engines from two of the SLV-2A were used for Delta boosters and the turbine wheels were removed from all of the other Thor MB-3 Block I and Block III engines in order to enable new RS-27 engines to be built for Delta boosters. It had been so long since we had built new MB-3 or RS-27 engines that the company that made the turbine wheels had gone out of business.

Love Scott’s accent. Makes him sounding like he’s saying “Exploder VI”. Might be more accurate that way!

Thanks Scott for another history lesson in the development of rockets and their uses from the start until now.

Very nice video on a not very famous rocket but mostly important for early US space program. There is the awesome KSP mod BlueDogDesignBureau that have all it's variants and payloads up to the Delta IV

Great video Scott. Awesome pics and videos of launches.

Nothing more permanent than a “temporary solution”

This was a very nice addition to my knowledge of the early space program (which I followed avidly as a kid). Thanks!!

Nicely researched, Scott

Thank you and Ed Kyle.

Impressive video as always 👍 Thanks for sharing your expirence with all of us 👍 🙂

Scott can you do something about the “Titan” family? There is quite a bit out there about Gemini and the Titan 2 GLV but I can’t find much about Titan 3 and 4 that’s not rubbish or in about 140P xD

Thanks for this brief history of a very famous and pioneering rocket. 🙂

Fascinating, well done. Interesting data that allows all the variants to be recognized. Even by people who never connected with Thor missile systems with all these launches.

I'm 68...This stuff is what I grew up with. Love it!

Lots of great stuff here. A mini deep dive into Thor

Wow, what a Thor-o discussion of this rocket family! Well done, Scott!

Thanks for the vids sir!

Thanks for the video Scott, just wanted to correct you when you said that Thor missiles were launched from silo's in the UK, they were not, they were stored horizontally on a launch pad covered in a collapsible structure that would be retracted prior to the missile being raised vertically and fuelled prior to launch

Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution

I love how bluedog design bureau provides some of the top-quality Thor images

Finally,The thor video. I've waited so long.

Wow, quite the history! Thanks Scott :)

Let’s go! Can’t get enough of older rockets 🚀

I just love how the engine designation on the one upper stage started with XLR8. Someone has a sense of humor.

Your SEO game is impeccable, Scott

When I opened the video I got an ad about some Thor-themed beer, and considering the channel and the topic it couldn't have fit better lol

Note that sometime in all of this the Agena D would have a propellant sump system allowing for main engine restart without ullage.

If anyone wants to see the LR-79 Thor liquid booster thrust chamber I moved several of the LR-79 TCAs to the Saxon Aerospace Museum in Boron, CA out in front which can be seen from HWY 58 as you drive by, and a complete LR-79 engine with turbo pumps is at the New Mexico Museum of Aerospace History near Alamogordo NM outside at the entrance to the museum building. These engines were part of the SEALAR program by Bob Truax which I was the senior engineer. Ken

Thanks for making such great videos about space travel, Scott! Also, this has no relevance to your video, but what were your first opinions on the KSP “Scott Münley” mod?

Greatvideo, thanks Scott

Thanks for the awesome content, this was a fun escape from the world news!

Love your cheerful, optimistic shirt!

Is that a TLD shirt you are wearing? Thanks for all of your videos, love from Barry in Fife, Scotland!

A great historical account here, to be sure, but what in the world is that t-shirt you’re wearing about, Scott??

I have a flying scale model rocket of the Thor Agena - B, a clone of the famous kit from Estes Industries. Cool rocket & model, one of my favorites.

Can you do a video discussing why rockets are so reliable now compared to how the first rockets always seemed to blow up on launch?

Good grief Scott, that T shirt you are wearing seems alarming, please could you tell me what it’s about? Your wealth of knowledge is amazing, and you must spend hours researching for these video's. Thanks for this video, stay safe, kind regards from England UK.

I see that you used Ed Kyle’s well-documented history, as story reference !!

When you mentioned the end of project Emily and the boosters being used for launching payloads I wonder what happened to the warheads? Was there a standard so they could fit those warheads on other boosters or did they "scrap" them? That also leads me to how do they actually produce these warheads?

Scott’s tee shirt sounds like me when I’m calling in sick to work.

Would love to see one of these rocket history videos about the titan aswell

That Starfish Test Shot story sounds super cool. You should make a video on it!

Great Job !

When I was on 5131 here in the UK, RAF North Luffenham used to be a base of ops and training ground, and there hidden away at the far side of the Airfield were the Thor launch sites still with the concrete covers. That was around 2005 don't know if they are still there.

“Nothing lasts longer than a ‘temporary fix’ that works well enough.”

Interesting bucket list t-shirt

Good program!

Hi Scott was hoping to get a mention of the Thor-Agena docking target used in the Gemini Program

Whoa! That atlas gimbaling footage is great

Great vid. I would disagree that the Starfish experiment disrupted communications "all around the world". But certainly disruption over a large area is correct. Thor's mythological "boomerang effect" is a good point! ;-)

Great history!

Which is why it is generally frowned upon to use duct tape as a stop gap measure to fix stuff. It ends up being there way too long and might end up being the one thing upon which the ship relies for structural integrity...

The two LR-101 vernier rocket motors in addition to providing fine trajectory control after BECO also provided roll-control the LR-79's operation.

Douglas is out here fielding a ballistic missile in 7 months while I can’t get a satellite finished in 2 years.

the reason we have NASA is that the US Army, US Navy and US Air Force each had their own ballistic missile programs and pet space launch programs. It would seem wasteful but if there was any country with resources to waste it would be the USA and it could be argued that the three competing programs accelerated the development of rocket technology in the US.

Incredible!

There's nothing more permanent than temporary

You had to have talked with Jay Prichard at the Vandenberg AFB museum. That's the only place you could have gotten some of this juicy footage.

Peerless, fascinating history and assessment of the Thor/Delta series, Scott, ma man.

12:13 "Poppy, Heavy Ferret". Don't know how you managed to gloss over that one 😁

I’m convinced ‘Thor Delta’ was chosen because ‘Thor Four’ was too difficult to say quickly

I would count the japanese N-I and N-II rockets also as part of the Thor rocket family, since they were basically made with different parts of Thor and Delta rockets (and also Castor booster) produced under licene by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. So we can add 7 launches (one failure) for the N-I between 1975 and 1982 and 8 launches for the N-II from 1981 to 1987 to the list. Also the H-I had a japanese second stage, but the first stage was form the Thor-ELT (also 9 Castor 2 SRBs). The H-I launched 9 times from 1986 to 1992 before it got replaces with the full indigenous H-II.

If electric toothbrushes could fly

I remember researching the Thor Installations in Northamptonshire, Rutland and Leicestershire many years ago because I lived in the area and travelled the area a lot. You can see the triangular concrete pads on Google Earth. The suggestion was that if they were used in anger they would probably have failed at launch.

Thank you, Scott! Aside, is your shirt subtly referencing The Long Dark?

I saw a Thor able at the uk national space centre and while back. There actually surprisingly big! 🚀

Where did you get that Outer Wilds poster?! That’s one of the best games ever!!! I personally think it should be a lot more popular than it is

Thor launching Corona was truly "Operationally responsive space". The curator of the museum that now sits where your video at the 5 minute mark was shot says they could get a tasking and have a Corona on orbit in less than two days.

A great episode about my favorite rocket family - at least until Falcon 9. The Thor - Delta!

The 'Game' referred to by your T-Shirt... Is 'Bingeing Every Scott Manley Video In One Sitting'? Because I have experienced all those symptoms!

Good video

Now I can understand a little better, how SpaceX was able to develop such powerful rocket engines so "quickly". So many of the problems of engineering such complex Raptors & Merlin rocket engines, were discovered by thousands of previous rocket engine designs. Sadly, I remember seeing live, several of the "duds", launched from Canaveral in the '60.

Really cool 😎 🤙🏼

well explains why we had a teacher at school who told us that the apollo rockets were designed to carry nuclear warheads, they obviously heard about the thor rockets put 2 and 2 together but got 5 instead of the right answer.

Love the Oregon trail shirt!

Would love to see a video about non-US satellite reconnaissance capabilities/history. Like when did the soviets start launching cameras on a polar orbit?