I’m in North Dakota, visiting the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site. It’s a real (retired) Minuteman control silo. It’s one of several Minuteman sites that were closed down under the START treaty ICBM limits.
A giant freight elevator takes you down 52 feet to the command level, then there is a 7 ton blast door leading into the armored command capsule, mounted on giant shock absorbers. The original command consoles are intact. Please don’t press any buttons.
It was fun to visit the launch controls, but, unlike with my visits to the Titan Missile Museum or the Pervomaisk SS24 museum, they don’t let you simulate a launch. But this one definitely scores extra credit for being a museum representative of the many still-active Minuteman Missile sites in the Mid-West, which are still very much alive, manned, and ready for service. Gulp.
You enter through the basement blast doors and then ride the tiny elevator 11 levels down into the armored control silo. You and one of your comrades man the launch control consoles. A quick consultation, then 1-2-3 you each turn your launch key and simultaneously push your launch button. And the SS-24 ICBM roars into the sky!
Well, fortunately there aren’t any missiles in the silos anymore, but otherwise it was an authentic USSR missile launch sequence, in a real cold war Soviet ICBM silo. The consoles we were using were the originals and really could have launched nuclear doom back in the day, so pushing the launch button made for a very eerie experience.
I’d been down a US ICBM silo (at the Titan Missile Museum) and simulated a launch there. So I was excited to have a chance to launch a retaliatory strike from inside the USSR. The Pervomaisk Missile Museum is in Southern Ukraine and is based in an old Soviet launch complex. We were told that the site had hosted SS-24 missiles targeted at the US East Coast. The missile silos themselves have now been filled in, under disarmament treaties, but the control silo has been preserved as part of the museum.
The complex has a surface museum, with models of the various silos, and there are also a few old missile and giant transporter trucks. But the high point is definitely visiting the control silo, playing with the controls and then lounging in the small crew room. As with the Titan command silo, the Soviet command silos are heavily shielded and the command structure is suspended within its silo to resist shock.
The Museum is near Pervomaisk about a 3 hour drive South of Kiev. I visited on a day tour run by SoloEast (aka TourKiev).
You enter the silo control room and take the command chair. Bob enters the launch codes and takes the deputy commander chair. The green “Ready to Launch” light comes on. “One – Two – Three” and you both simultaneously turn your launch keys. The “Launch Enable” light comes on. The ICBM launch is now irrevocable and unstoppable.
Gulp.
Yes, it’s only a museum. The silo has been decommissioned and the ICBM is only a training dummy. But it’s still an amazingly spooky experience to be in a real Cold War ICBM silo going through the launch initiation sequence and turning the real launch control key. Exactly as many crews were trained to do, but never executed.
This is the Titan Missile Museum, 30 miles South of Tucson. It served as an active Titan II ICBM silo from 1963 to 1982 and then became a museum. They run one hour guided tours every hour, taking you through the crew quarters, and into the control room for the simulated launch. You also get to see the decommissioned Titan II sitting brooding in its launch shaft.
The silo is an impressive piece of engineering. The whole complex is heavily blast resistant, with massive blast doors and lots of thick concrete. There were also unexpected features, like flex joints in a concrete tunnel to allow movement during a blast, and giant springs in the command area to buffer shocks. In order to execute a launch, the crew needed to receive the launch codes from remote headquarters, so the silo has multiple layers of backup communications. Two backup radio antennas rest protected in their own little mini-silos, ready to be pushed above ground if the main antenna is taken out.
Tour groups can be up to 25 people, but there were only 3 in our group. If you want to be the lucky visitor to operate the launch controls, try to be at the front of your group when you get into the command room.
I found it a very striking experience. Don’t miss it if you’re in Tucson.
