Posted on 07/25/2012 6:18:02 AM PDT by moonshot925
^^ Video is at the link
Operational from April 1961 to June 1965.
The missile was stored vertically underground and sat atop an elevator. When the time came to launch, it would be lifted to to surface.
Interesting video. Check out the bats in your ‘man cave’!
Have to read for later....
Ooooo...I saw some politically incorrect graffiti! LOL!
The test was called "Castle Bravo" and the device was code-named "Shrimp."
The 550th SMS has a really good Wiki and includes a map to all the sites. The seller is non-specific on which location he is offering so it was interesting to look at the map of all the possibilities. Two of the sites are in the same county where I own a farm I inherited so the pictures on the e-Bay listing seem pretty familiar.
Group buy on a bunker?
;-P
What will 47 cents get me?
It’d be neat to own one but there’s no view and you have to worry that the bad guys might be using an old map showing your abode it still active.
I want one!
Do a search on “earthscraper” or http://io9.com/5845777/the-earthscraper-a-65+story+tall-skyscraper-buried-underground/gallery/1
How about underground home - http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=underground+home&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz35
Got down into one of these southeast of Roswell back in about 1970. There were 12 surrounding Walker AFB in Roswell until the state went Republican in the 64 election and LBJ shut down the base.
There were system books still in the living quarters and I took one showing complete illustration of the huge spring suspension system supporting the missle and frame used to raise the missle to the surface.
They were salvaging one north east of Roswell when a fellow backed a D8 Cat into the silo with the doors open. His last ride on his Cat, 300’ down. It happened to be the silo where static electricity set one of the missles off inside the silo. Apparently there was a problem early on with static electricity and I got to look down into the silo where all the I beam structure was bent all to hell and burnt black.
The sheriff told me it was very creepy because there was no visible activity at the silos and about once a month in the middle of the night this highly polished and reflective missle would quietly rise out of the ground and a few minutes later it would quietly disappear back into the ground. At first he said they wondered if the cold war was getting ready to turn very hot but finally realized they were just checking out the systems. His little home town was using the silo’s water well to its water supply.
oops
Ole hooligan LBJ warned the state that he would close that base if they went R and by god that is what he did. Devastated the local economy. Walker AFB was a SAC base at the time with B47’s and B52’s.
They voted for Johnson by a huge margin.
The Atlas ICBMs were all retired by the end of 1965 because they were obsolete. It didn’t have anything to do with which party was in control.
The Atlas took 10-15 minutes to launch and was liquid fueled, which made it very dangerous.
The new Minuteman missiles could be launched in less than a minute and were solid fueled, which made them safer and require less maintenance.
The Minuteman was also much more accurate than the Atlas.
Oh boy, so much for all these decades of trust and not verifying.
Righto on the fuel. If you read my post you would see that they had a severe problem with static electricity during fueling and these things blowing up in the silo, was a consideration on its retirement.
The point of the base closing was there was no need for the missles once the SAC base closed. Had a flight instructor that was stationed there at one time as a B47 pilot.
The town was about 35,000 population or so and the closing took it to its knees for years. The salvation was when Pan Am and boeing needed a big, big runway for pre certification of the 747 and they picked Roswell because of the 12 or 13,000 ft. runway with high speed turn offs. I will never forget first seeing that thing in the air, it was so big it barely looked like it could stay in the air.
They used our little airport as an alternate in case of in flight emergencies but alas, never happened.
Anyway, the silos were neat and were kinda creepy to get down into and I have never been anyplace darker. Dark, dark, dark.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
