The Triton Missile in the Silo carried a 9 Megaton Warhead, which would do a lot of damage...how much..... here is how much...if it were dropped on New York City, the red area below would be completely wiped out.....total!
This is what the warhead looks like that sits on top of the Titan Missile, it is now in the lobby of the Museum.
This is the uniform of the "maintenance men" who took care of the facility... everyone had to wear a uniform, and the men and women working in the Silo, reported to the Davis-Monthane Marine Base in Tucson.
If you had this uniform on, you ran the actual launch of the missile. It took 4 Marines to run the actual launch of the missile. Two of the 4 actually held the launch keys and the launch sequence numbers. The only person in the world that could order the launch of this missile was the President of the United States of America.
If you had this uniform on, you were the poor guy that had to go out there and fuel up the Missile! Good Luck!
This missile base came on line in 1962 and remained active until 1982, a period of 20 years.... it then was converted to a museum. All the other 35 missile silos were destroyed by explosives...
In 1995 they filmed a part of the second Star Trek Movie in the silo, here is Picard touching the missile....
They show you a 10 minute movie, and then a 20 minute walk outside the complex to see the actual silo.... here is a pic of the 2 engines that fired up the first stage of the Titan Missile...they would only burn for a couple minutes...
This is the second stage rocket, that put the missile in outer space on route to it's end target. The missile in this silo had 3 possible targets to hit, and most of the time it was set on target #2. Nobody ever knew what that target was.... they still don't know what it would have hit. If the missile was ever launched, (it never was) it was pre-programed to hit the target, and the launch crew could do nothing to change it.
This is the actual entrance to the missile control room, you go down 55 steps.
When at the bottom of the steps you are in front of large 4 foot thick concrete walls and vault doors that were to protect the launch room. This is part of the runway to the launch room. You could walk from the launch room to the actual missile underground.
This is it! The actual control console that launched the missile!
The 2nd in command sat here to assist in the firing of the missile....both had to insert a key and turn it like a car key, and hold for 5 seconds to start the launch process...
More communication equipment... don't forget, this was built in 1962, and all these panels of computers would fit in a laptop now....
This is the main panel.... they did a simulated launch when we were there...
Once the President said "Fire", they two in charge would have to open this red cabinet together, each one owned one of the locks, and get out the book that had the launch sequence in it.
After we launched the missile from the control room, we decided to go and see if it was still in the silo or not.....
It turns out it must have been a dud! Still there.... This shot is from the outside looking down from the observatory tower you will see below.... the missile is 10 feet wide and over 106 feet long...
This is where I stood to take the above picture.... The silo doors are sort of jammed and cemented part way open, this was to satisfy the Russians the silo was no longer operative, and they still check it from outer space today by satellite images...
This shot is from inside the silo, we got to about 10 feet from it... very cool.... so how much do you think all this cost????? In 1962 Dollars, it cost $8.5 million for the silo and control room and then an additional $2 million for the actual missile.... X 36 silo's in the U.S. and you can see it cost money not to shoot them off.... The missiles were eventually used to launch a lot of the satelittes now in outer space, so they did get some bang for the buck!
The only thing you saw driving up to the site in the 60's and 70's was the silo doors and the fencing.... the main gate is here behind this Jeep. The crew once inside the silo for their shift, never came outside. The Air Force had security guards in the Jeep below to watch the outside. They had to cover 3 silos in this area south of Tucson. There was fancy motion detectors all over the compound to alert them to intruders....
Close up on the Jeep... as I mentioned before, they have destroyed all the silos except this one. After they blew up the top 10 feet of the silo, they filled it in and returned the land to look natural.... of course all the rooms below ground were still there! They then sold some of the sites off to the public. There was one guy that bought one, and has now excavated the silo, and the opening of the silo is the centre focus of his living room. He is making the control room into a wine cellar. Some people have too much money....
We both enjoyed the tour, and the one reason they do the tour is to create awareness. It is very well done, and is run by volunteers. Yes, the U.S.A. still has some active weapons in silos, you would see some if you drove through North Dakota.... We drove down an old back road to the Museum today, and yup, found a mountain to take a picture of. Nice day, but just a bit cool. Hot tub fixed that though when we got back home....
Till tomorrow.....
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