Titan Missile Museum

Today’s activity (Friday) was visiting the Titan Missile Museum near Green Valley, AZ. It is one of eighteen missile silos that were built in AZ and is now run by the Pima Air Museum. This was a place I really wanted to visit. 

We went on the tour with KathyK and MikeK. You enter the facility by going down 55 steps and through a series of secure compartments and multiple blast doors. Using a series of passcodes to keep people out. 

This diagram shows the setup with the entrance in the center, the middle silo on the right and launch control and living area on the left. 

This is the tour leader in the launch control room. The entire room is suspended on springs to be isolated from shocks. She went through the launch procedure to demonstrate the safeguards that were in place to allow only a deliberate launch. 

After the launch demo, we headed through the tunnel to the missile silo itself. Several blast doors protected the four people working in the facility. The missile in the silo is, obviously, decommissioned and the overhead doors are open halfway and blocked in that position to allow satellite reconnaissance to see into the silo. 

This is the view from the glass dome over the silo. The rectangular opening is to allow verification that the warhead was removed. The open door just above and left of center goes into the tunnel towards launch control.