American development conditions differed from the urgent threats facing Britain, Japan, and Germany. The United States explored many rocket ideas without the same need to rush an improvised wartime system into service, so its programs could move toward guided missiles. A heavily modified Typhoon design may later have served as an American weather rocket for atmospheric measurement. Even an unsuccessful wartime rocket could leave a useful technical legacy. Operation Bumblebee belongs to this longer missile path.
Chapter · 7:01-8:28
Why the United States moved past barrage rockets
Lower immediate air-defence pressure let American programs such as Operation Bumblebee move toward guided missiles without first rushing a barrage rocket into service.