page_title: United States Navy Special Projects Office
section_title: Research challenges
hierarchical_section_title: United States Navy Special Projects Office / History / Research challenges
caption_attribution_description: An aerial view of the USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN 624) outbound in San Francisco Bay with the Golden Gate Bridge in background.
context_page_description: United States Navy Special Projects Office is a former research and design office of the United States Navy, responsible for the coordination of the development and design of the US Navy Fleet Ballistic Missiles Polaris and Poseidon.
  The Special Projects Office was initiated in 1956 as new organization with a mandate to develop a submarine-launched solid-fuel fleet ballistic missile. The Special Projects Office reported directly to Admiral Arleigh Burke, and the secretary of the Navy, an unprecedented bypass of the Navy bureaus that signalled the Navy's commitment to the FBM concept.
  To direct the Special Projects Office, at John H. Sides' persistent suggestion, Burke selected Sides' former deputy, Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr., whose phenomenal success in that role would earn him renown as the father of Polaris.
  The Special Projects Office is also known for the development of the planning and scheduling methodology, known as Program Evaluation and Review Technique or just PERT, and first published in 1958.
context_section_description: Work on the marine version of the Jupiter missile gained momentum in 1956, while the year 1959 was sets as the date of dispatch for the first modified missiles on board commercial vessels at sea. For the naval version of the missile a drive based on solid fuel was considered. Some studies had showed, that this could be used in nuclear-powered submarine with ballistic missiles up to 8,300 tonnes.
  During the program, the US Navy had doubts about the application of liquid fuel missiles on board, so initiated studies on the possibility of the use of drives on solid fuel, which, however, limited the ability to transfer cargo. A breakthrough in this area occurred in 1956, when scientists discovered a way to significantly reduce the size of thermonuclear warheads.
  Father of the American hydrogen bomb - Dr. Edward Teller had stated in the summer of 1956, that soon heads weighing 400 pounds (181 kg) will have the power of a bomb explosion 5000-pound (2270 kg). In September that year, the US Atomic Energy Agency estimated, that such a small nuclear warhead would be available in 1965, with some chance of making it back in 1963. The development of this specific program coincided with the intensive work on the high thrust drive on solid fuels.
  These developments made admiral Raborn decide, August 1956, to initiated a joined program with the US Navy and US Army. It was connected with the formal initiation of the small solid-fuel missile, which has been accepted by the Secretary of Defense in December 1956.
caption: USS Woodrow Wilson submarine
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