abstract:The United States Air Force's Minuteman ICBM weapon system Transporter Erector (TE) is a mobile system used to emplace LGM-30 Minuteman missiles inside their protective launch facilities.
As it happens, Moscow is actively marketing its SS-25 ICBM as a "START I space launch vehicle, " complete with its standard-issue mobile transporter-erector-launcher.
Is it possible, therefore, that one could be transporting a Scud-type missile -- loaded, not in its hold under sacks of concrete, but onto a transporter-erector-launcher -- and remain undetected as it moved within range of one of America's many littoral population centers?