February 24, 2023
We awaken early this morning to make our 1 hour 20 minutes drive to make our 11:00 AM appointment. Where you ask. The Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, The museum tour is led by a guide and lasts about 45 minutes. It was awesome. The tour starts in a room where you watch a short video about the silos and the missiles. You are told you must descend into the silo by 55 steps. I’m not sure where they started their count but it seemed like a lot more than 55 steps. You had at least 15 steps just to get to the silo entrance. You get to see how thick and heavy the doors are protecting the silos. There were 4 men on duty at all times for 24 hour shifts. The two officers had 3 minutes to go through the launch process which included at least three verification steps. The other two enlisted men were there to fix anything if it malfunctioned to ensure that the missile did launch.
An interesting, at least to me, feature about the control room is that it is built on giant springs and not attached to the walls of the silo. This was to protect the electronics in the control room from shocks and vibration if the US had been attacked first and missiles had exploded nearby. Nearby means more than one mile. We then walked through a tunnel several feet long to the actually silo and saw a Titan Missile in its home. It was aptly named as the missile was very large. From their we went back up the tunnel to the entrance and ascended the steps. Once outside we could walk the grounds as they various support vehicles and displays set up. You could also go to the missile silo and see the heavy doors that covered the missile and see a top view of the missile. This is only possible because the silo door is concreted half open and where the warhead would be is cut in half also. This lets the Russian spy planes know that this silo is inactive and abides by the treaty.
Overall, I found the tour very interesting. It would have been similar to the Minuteman tour in SD that I didn’t get to go on.
