This is how a submarine-launched ballistic missile works: once airborne, the 60-ton missile travels out of the earth’s atmosphere into sub-orbit, where it moves toward its target at a shade under 4 miles a second. Approaching its destination, the tip of the missile splits into multiple, independently targeted warheads, each loaded with bombs up to 24 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast, which re-enter the atmosphere in a spectacle that from the ground would resemble a meteor shower, before it resembled a thousand roaring suns. There are hundreds of these and similar land-based long-range missiles ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
