THE structural design of a long range ballistic missile or a space rocket vehicle is an intriguing problem. It is hardly necessary to stress the importance of achieving as light a structure as possible, since any unnecessary increase of structural weight can severely affect its performance or result in a profound increase of its total weight. There is a dearth of published information on this subject, presumably because of security restrictions. Among the papers available, only Sechler dwells on the structural design consideration in any detail. We have therefore very few specific facts to guide us, and can only relate the problem to our aircraft design experience with commonsense.