On the Side of the Road–Titan II Missile Museum

Okay, it’s not a car, but it is a motor vehicle and very fast and it was on the side of the road.  This was quite an exhibit, especially these days.

I mean, how often do you get to see a nuclear missile site?  We got to see what the reentry vehicle amounted to (the bomb).

The reentry vehicle came back to earth at over 20 times the speed of sound.

This was some serious stuff.

Here was a chart of the missile museums.  Perhaps there is one near you.

These were the locations of Minute Man and Titan missile sites.

Things don’t work 100% at all times so there was redundancy built in to the missile systems.  Called Overkill.  It was deemed important to be certain that if a strike was launched we would do our part to end the world as we know it.

At the time it was known as mutually assured destruction or MAD.  All we can say is that it has worked so far.  But do see the movies Dr. Strangelove and War Games and think about it yourself.

Before we went down to the actual underground missile and command center we watched a video on the cold war.

Following that we went to the hatch and walked down about 55 stair steps to get to where the blast doors were.

Which led to another blast door.

Eventually to the command launch center where we observed and participated in a launch simulation that showed us what was involved in a launch of a Titan II missile.

The underground rooms were supported on multiple springs in order to survive a near miss from an enemy missile.

After the “launch” we went to the actual silo and had a look at an inert Titan II missile.

Then we climbed back out and took a look at the things that were above ground .  One being the huge and heavy door that normally covered the missile.

The Titan II is a two stage missile and these are the engines for the first stage that got it about fifty mile in the air and fifty miles closer to it target.

Then the second stage engine would propel it another 200 miles before it would release the re-entry vehicle,  otherwise known as the thermonuclear weapon, to fall on its target.

Was this scary? Yes and no.  The thought of the reality of such weapons ever being used is unbelievable.  Thank goodness we haven’t as I doubt that it would solve any problems except over population.