The Brownbag

by Noel Agnew
If you just can’t wait for overnight shipping, how does Missile Mail sound? On this day in 1959 a US Navy submarine launched 3,000 letters via missile from Virginia to Florida. It arrived at its destination just 22 minutes later. Happily the rocket’s nuclear warhead had been replaced by two Postal Service containers. One of the postcards it contained was addressed to President Eisenhower. This was a test run but Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield claimed at the time that guided missiles would be the future of long distance mail.

Of course this never happened, the cost of such a plan being ludicrously expensive. It makes even less sense today, e-mail is pretty quick isn’t it? Still, apparently America still has around 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles, stashed away since the end of the Cold War. I can think of worse uses than mail runs.

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