July 12

Final post for this holiday. Today we visited the Titan Missile Museum south of Tucson on the site of one of the cold war missile sites, now decommissioned and made into a national landmark. There were 12 of these sites around Tucson during the cold war. These missiles were the most powerful and longest range missiles in use at the time.

Missile nose cone

The entrance to the control room was through a thick steel door then a
1.2m solid concrete wall and another steel door.

Control room. Note the large steel spring in the corner.
This was to protect against earthquakes caused by a nuclear explosion nearby

The entire corridor was lined with shock absorbers

the hazard suits were for filling the missile with fuel which was highly toxic.
The fuel was a two part mix that self ignited removing the need
for an ignition system other than a means of feeding the two parts together.

The missile in its silo ready for launch - though it's no longer
fueled or armed of course.

The missile's stage one rocket engine.