Titan Missile Silo – Tucson, Arizona
Located just south of Tucson, Arizona, the Titan Missile Museum preserves one of the stark reminders of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Between the 1960’s and 1980’s the Titan II was the largest (103 ft tall) nuclear missile deployed by the United States military. It contained a single 9 megaton warhead, equivalent to 600 times the yield of bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The museum preserves the missile silo and facility where a 4-man crew worked 24 hrs a day. It is the only remaining Titan missile facility in existence. The others, located in the states of Arizona, Oklahoma and Kansas were demolished as part of a treaty with the Soviet Union.
The guided tour of the facility, which takes about an hour, offers access to the launch control room, and the corridor connecting it to the areas around the missile silo, and the equipment displayed above ground.
It’s an amazing place, and the biggest take away I had was just how much engineering went into hardening the facility against a nuclear attack, from thick metal blast doors, to giant springs meant to limit the impact of such a strike on the facility’s ability to carry out a retaliatory strike.
Virtual Tour
- Nearly everything about the missile facility is below ground. So it’s not surprising that to get inside you have to descend either the stairway or an elevator that was installed to move larger loads like food and supplies needed by the 4-man crews that called the silo home. As the tour guide will tell you, the process of getting through the doors and into the missile facility was extremely tedious back in the day, involving multiple security checks via an installed phone system. Fortunately, our access was relatively easy.
Titan Missile Silo Entrance
2. A view of the elevator, and the doors covering it as I rose to the surface at the end of the tour. You basically leave the same way you come in.
Missile Silo Elevator
3. Once you get through the security check area, you have reached the entrance to the “hardened” portion of the missile facility. Everything beyond the blast door seen below, including the missile silo, the crew quarters, and the control room were designed to survive all but the closest nuclear blasts.
Blast Doors Titan Missile Facility
4. A picture of the hallway that separates the control room and crew quarters from the missile silo in the distance.
Titan Missile Facility Hallway
5. This is a sample of all the wiring that connects the control room with the missile silo portion of the launch facility. The computers and other equipment required to launch the Titan II missile are just out of view to the left.
Wiring – Missile Silo Control Room
6. A sample of the hardware put in place to protect the control room and missile silo from the shock of a nuclear blast. The spring is as big as it looks.
Giant Spring – Titan Missile Facility
7. A view of the control room. The commander on duty would sit in the chair at the lower right while his second in command would operate the equipment to the left. From our discussion, and demonstration put on by retired military personnel, nearly all the equipment pictured is still functional.
Titan Missile Facility Control Room
8. Another view of the hallway as you approach the missile silo. You will notice the shock absorbers that line the hallway on either side.
Missile Silo Hallway
9. One of the downsides of the Titan II Missile system was that its fuel source was hazardous, and missile crews needed to be prepared to deal with any problems that arose while fueling the missile. The upside of the process, if there was one, was that the chemical used, allowed a Titan II missile to be launched very quickly.
Chemical Spill Hazmat Suits
10. An emergency shower system was also installed to help the crews to clean up if the need arose.
Showers Titan Missile Facility
11. A view inside the Titan II missile silo
Missile Silo View
12. A better view of the Titan II missile itself.
Titan II Missile in its Silo
13. A view of the tanker that carried the two chemicals (Aerozine 50, and dinitrogen tetroxide) required to fuel the Titan II missile.
Titan Missile Fueling Tanker
14. One of two antenna systems the Titan II Missile crews used to communicate with the outside world. If this one was destroyed by a nuclear blast, a second antenna, embedded mostly in the ground and less susceptible to a blast was used.
Titan II Missile Facility Antenna
15. Radar equipment was used to detect people and moving objects approaching the launch doors of the Titan Missile silo. If something was detected a warning would be sent to the personnel at the launch facility as well as Davis-Monthan AFB nearby. The personnel in the launch facility would essentially remain on lockdown until military police had arrived and assessed and if necessary eliminated any threat to the facility.
Radar Surveillance Equipment
16. An original military police vehicle used at the facility.
Military Police Jeep
Further Reading Suggestion:
The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition – Richard Rhodes
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety Eric Schlosser
