e.g. was just reading about some cold war era missiles that from launch command needed 30 minutes to be able to be launched.
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This is only really a problem with liquid fueled rockets.
Liquid rocket fuel is, to not exaggerate, extremely nasty shit. It’s corrosive enough that it’ll eat through a lot of things, such is o-rings and rubber seals, and even the fuel tank itself if left there long enough.
So, to keep the fuel from eating the rocket, you keep the rocket unfuelled until you’re getting ready to fire it. This process, however, takes time. Quite a bit of time.
For this reason the Soviet Union was always at a disadvantage with their nukes. Most of their rockets were liquid fueled while American ICBMs predominately used solid fuel, which did not have the same drawbacks.
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