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Missiles are pretty awesome as long as they’re not pointed at you.
Meanwhile, the mail is not very awesome according to the views I get on mail related topics.
Put them together, though, and you get a completely awesome neutral thing—missile mail.
Now, this of course sounds crazy and impractical but for a while, missile transported mail
was what many believed to be the future.
There are plenty of ways that mail has been or is delivered beyond just planes, trains,
and automobiles.
For example, 100 years ago mail was delivered by sled dog in Alaska and by telemark skiers
in Colorado.
Still today, mail is delivered by boat for houses on Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, by helicopter
for residents of Little Diomede, Alaska, and by mule for those that live in Supai, Arizona.
Only about 3,000 people ever, though, have had their official US mail transported by
rocket.
In the 1950s, despite both telegraph and phones existing, the mail was still a major means
of communication thanks to its low cost.
People cared as much about the speed of the mail then as they do about their internet
speed nowadays.
Trains are slow, cars are faster, planes are even faster, but missiles are fastest.
Therefore that was the high IQ idea—delivering mail by missile.
Now, you might notice a few issues with this plan—missiles are expensive, hard to retrieve,
and oh yeah, they are literally supersonic death machines.
Even if you take the the explosive out of a rocket, it plus the ground is not a recipe
for success… unless you’re going for widespread death and destruction but that’s bad, I’m
told.
Nonetheless, this had been tried a few times through history at a small scale.
Not the death and destruction, to clarify, the US tried that at full scale, but the missile
mail.
In the beginning these tests generally took the form of just loading a few letters into
a small missile that would be sent over a river or field but during World War Two killing
enthusiasts put a bunch of effort into developing accurate, long-range missiles.
By the 50s, these could travel hundreds of miles and reliably land on a small target.
That advancement coincided with the reign of Arthur Ellsworth Summerfield, Postmaster
General.
Much like being a YouTuber, being Postmaster General was once super well respected.
This was because the mail was once incredibly important and therefore Summerfield had significant
enough powers to advocate for the testing and implementation of rocket mail as he really,
truly believed it was the future.
He rather famously said, “Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within
hours from New York to California, to England, to India, or to Australia by guided missiles.
We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”
In reality, all that he was on the threshold of was wasting a lot of money.
In 1959 an official US Post Office Branch was established on the USS Barbero—a 311
foot long submarine capable of firing missiles.
While the Barbero was docked at its home base in Norfolk, Virginia, a Regulus cruise missile
was loaded onboard which itself was not loaded with the nuclear payload it was designed for.
It was loaded with 3,000 pieces of mail.
The submarine then left Norfolk, headed into the Atlantic Ocean, and sailed south.
After a few days it reached roughly here and at 12 noon the submarine fired its special
mail missile.
After 22 minutes in the air the missile splashed down just off the coast of Naval Station Mayport
in Florida from where it was subsequently retrieved.
From there, the letters were removed and brought to the nearest non-floating post office to
continue their journey to their destinations.
Now, considering that most of the letters were headed to DC, Europe, and the rest of
the world, this rocket moved the mail, well, in the exact wrong direction.
All the letters in the missile were actually written by Postmaster General Summerfield
to the US president, politicians, and the postmaster generals of every other Universal
Postal Union member country.
This test was a mix of the military showing off to the soviets and Summerfield showing
off to politicians and his postmaster friends.
Today, the letters that took that rocket ride are hugely popular with philatelic enthusiasts—those
that collect stamps and related materials—and are sold regularly for almost $500 but that’s
about all this test was good for.
The missile, without even considering the days it took to get into position, flew 100
miles in 22 minutes making it slower than a normal jet plane.
Even though modern missiles are much faster they’re still hugely expensive and often
can’t be reused.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why mail delivery by rocket never caught on.
With widespread jet planes and the internet nowadays, there just isn’t the need anymore
for super fast mail delivery.
There is the need for two other things though—a reliable means to keep your online identity
safe and drone delivered quesadillas.
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