March 19th: Titan Missile Museum

Tuesday
We packed up and left the very pleasant site of Patagonia Lake State Park really early, though we lost half an hour when the GPS directed us down a tarmac road which after 5 miles turned into a dirt road, so we had to do a three point turn and come back, no fun for a rig more than 50 foot long. Once we had passed Nogales the then had to pass through the Border Check Point (no we had not been across to Mexico, but all roads from Mexico have the check point), this tiem we were waved through without comment - Phew!
As we were still well up on time we decided to visit the Titan Missile Museum south of Tucson. What a fascinating place. It is the only missile silo that is still in 'working order', preserved as a piece of history and accessible to the public. The rest of this blog is probably quite boring to many, so don't worry if you skip it.
But the pictures are fun:

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Our tour guide was a man called Steve, who had been a crew member from 1956 until 1964, that meant the he was the guy who had his hand on the button of a nuclear missile right through the Cuban Missile Crisis. He  explained took place in the control room. The team of four worked a 24 hour shift, every action on duty required two people to work together. The closest thing that there is to a launch code was a butterfly vavle on the main fuel line to the rocket motors. That could only be operated if a combination code was fed in to the control panel. The control code was kept in a filing cabinet that had two locks on it. The launch was started by a radio message from HQ, which consisted of a series of codes. The codes had corresponding codes in the filing cabinets that had to match, then provided the Butterfly valve code. You had 7 goes to get the code right, then the panel would destroy itself.  On entering the sequence two keys, 7 feet aparet, had to be turned together, which started the launch sequence. Once the butterfly valve was opened and the sequence started there was no 'off' switch - the missile would launch. Its flight path was determined by paper punch tapes, the crew had no knowledge of the target.
We then went and saw the Titan II missile, still standing in its silo, where it had been for more than 50 years. The same type of rocket that launched Colonel John Glenn into orbit in the Gemini Space Capsule. in 1963.
There were 54 Titan II silos in USA, no missiles were ever fired from them. Training flights were carried out at Van Den Burgh Airbase in California.
The technology was basic but very well thought out. Both the missile and the control room were spring mounted and could move more than a foot in any direction, or rather stay where they were if the ground moved, as might happen in a nuclear attack nearby. All the systems had back ups and though they were electro mechanical rather than electronic, they all functioned well. The silo was hardened with steel and concrete walls between 4 and 8 feet thick, and doors to match. The entrance had two doors in, with an airlock in between. One door could not open unless the other was shut, in case  there was a nuclear attack at the very moment the door opened. If they had had to fire the missile there was no back up pan for afterwards, they were told that the air inside would keep them alive for up to 15 days, after that they were on their own, though there was an escape tube/air conditioning vent which gave them emergency access to the outside.
I repeat it was fascinating to experience being in the complex that at once protected and threatened the world at the turn of a key. The titan II missiles were in operation from 1962 until 1983.