30: A Marvel of Engineering DONE!

Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Missile Silo Historic Site, Cooperstown, ND. June 2011. We took a totally random day trip with Grandpa and Grandma all the way out to this missile launch control base thingy. We toured the facility, which has a totally crazy nuclear attack-proof bunker control center 50 feel underground. It was scary, awesome, and illuminating!

The group that manned this base was called Space Command, which was the branch of the Air Force that dealt with space missions and long-range missiles. The base was manned from the early 1960's until 1997, and was the control center that could launch 10 (out of the 450 total) nuclear missiles that were buried in North Dakota and aimed at specific points in Russia. This is now considered to be a part of Cold War history. If you look behind the kids, you see the entrance to the control room--it shows the thickness of the egg-shaped cement enclosure surrounding it.

This is one of two desks in the underground control centers that could launch missiles. There had to be two people in the control center at all times, and there was a super complicated protocol to actually launch a missile, which obviously never happened. Orders would come from the president, and the missile could be launched within 3 minutes of the order being given.

The technology in the room includes a rotary telephone, a typewriter, and a slot with a long roll of paper coming out of the ridiculously oversized computers. It was all very expensive and serious at the time, but now it begs the question of whether a missile informed by 1960's technology could really have hit a target in Russia. Nevertheless, the people that manned it carried a staggering amount of responsibility.

Inside of the cement egg enclosure, all of the important equipment was actually on a floating platform suspended from the ceiling by huge hydraulic shock absorbers (that light blue thing behind Grandpa with the gauge on it). It was designed this way to protect the equipment in case of massive impact. Also, the air intake system has sensors on it so that if there is a huge change in air pressure on the surface, it automatically seals itself up to protect the people underground. It is difficult to believe how terrified everyone was. The threat of a Russian nuclear attack was so real, and they spent SO MUCH money to build all this crap.

This is the ladder that leads to the underground craziness.

This is the above-ground control room for the security team that protected the base. Cook's favorite part of the tour was being able to handle dummy M-16s.

It's hard to even describe this place. The red door behind Cook was designed to seal off the underground part from the surface. It weighs 14 tons, and our tour guide said it is so well-engineered that it is easy to move by barely touching it, but that once it's moving it is almost impossible to stop. All they could do was hope that it would stop a nuclear attack, but it was not possible to test it. This was a really educational and eye-opening tour.