Titan Missle Silo

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We recently visited a Titan II missile silo museum out in the desert west of Tucson AZ.

From the spring of 1963 through the spring of 1984 Titan II Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles
were on alert in hardened underground bunkers in the US.

There were 18 Titan II missile silos around Little Rock Arkansas, Wichita Kansas
and Tucson Arizona for a total of 54 missiles scattered across the prairies and deserts
of the southern United States.

The museum is an original silo from the cold war and it holds the last remaining Titan II missile.


With the missile sites being small 1 acre sites scattered across the prairie and desert there was no one stationed topside to let you in. Instead you had to use a phone at the electrified gate giving a password to be let in.




Once you were granted access you had 3 minutes to make your way across the complex to the bottom of the first set of access stairs where you had to punch a secret access code that you brought with you from the base. You then had to burn the paper the code was written on.




If your code was correct you entered a hardened staircase and went down more steps to a blast proof door where you had to again call in to be grated access into the inner blast protected area of the command center an missile silo.

The 3 ton blast doors protect launch control and the missile silos from the outside world

in the event of an attack

740 ton steel and concrete blast proof doors covers the top of the 150 foot deep silo. 

To abide by a US/USSR agreement, the 740 ton steel and concrete blast  proof silo doors are permanently blocked from opening more than half way. 

The dummy reentry vehicle (nuclear warhead) mounted on the missile has a prominent hole

cut in it to prove it is inert and the missile is not fueled. 

Below, yellow and black stripes mark a passage through the 8 foot thick poured concrete blast wall leading out to the 250 foot access tunnel that goes from the launch control center out to the missile.

The launch control center was manned by a team of four 24/7 during the cold war. 

The woman pictured above was a commander of one of the missile sites and was tasked with firing the nuclear missile should the order come down to do so.




Launch keys, codes and targeting information were kept locked in a cabinet that required
two key from two different officers to open

Communication systems would be critical after a blast so redundant back up systems were maintained with back up antennas housed in hardened bunkers underground
to protect from possible nuclear blasts

All of the support facilities at the site remain intact, complete with all of their original equipment

Because of the negotiated treaties between Russia and the US, missile system like the Triton II were decommissioned, and the overall number of nuclear warhead has been greatly reduced.

Kids today no longer need to watch the "Duck and Cover" films in school like we did in the 60's.