A Titan Experience

October 17, 2009

With this weekend coming up Joan and I were thinking about looking for some type of a tourist type thing or maybe a daytrip to take. Anjan had a rare two day weekend home and would be around to help Tracey with Rohan. One of the things that Tracey and Anjan had done and found to be interesting was a trip down to the Titan Missile museum site south of Tucson so we decided to go and take a look.

We are of the age to remember the cold war and the build up of missiles and the nuclear arms race and the Titans played a big role in that. Terms like "Peace through Deterrance", or worse "mutual destruction" were thrown around freely. It seemed that you were constantly reading or seeing on TV how the US was building more rockets and more nuclear warheads in a race to keep ahead of Russia doing the same. We build one, they build one, we make a bigger one, they make a bigger one, and on and on and someplace someone had their finger on the trigger. Of course the ultimate trigger finger was on the hand of the president. It makes you wonder from there on down to the guys in the control room at the missile site just what the possibility of a mistake was. These were the things that movies are made of I guess.

Originally there were 4 places in the States where there were clusters of about 18 Titans and a total of 54 Titans each with a 9 megaton nuclear bomb on the top. Now there is only one left that is de-nuked and preserved in a museum type setting just south of Tucson. The Titans were dismantled in 1982 with the exception of this one which by mutual agreement with Russia was left. Initially the missile was left in the open with openings in it to allow the Russians to see with their spy sattelites that it was harmless. Also concrete bulkheads that would be visible from space were put in place to prevent the lid on the silo from being fully opened. These remain today for that purpose.

Below is the main museum building that houses a lot of artifacts that tell the story of the program. It was highly emphasized that the program was for peace through deterrance. The more I think about this I think it was twisted logic but as they pointed out it worked and we never had WWIII, yet. If one side had pushed the button and the other side pushed theirs we wouldn't be here today discussing it. (left click on picture to view full size)

Below is topside of missile silo with lid in place plus communication antennas

Below is the tanker that provided one of the liquid fuels for the missile. There were two liquid fuels that combined to power the rocket. The fuels had really long names and were loaded into the rocket by gravity. These were bad actors and were very toxic plus if they ever got together -kaboom!! They didn't have to flick a Bic but only open two valves to mix the fuels and there was no turning back. The two fuels were loaded from opposite sides of the site. Once loaded the entire missile had to be kept in a relatively narrow temperature range I think in the upper 60's so the entire missile had to be kept in an air-conditioned environment. Keep in mind this is a desert environment and the day we were there the outside temperature topped 100 degrees (but it's a dry heat and was in the 30's and 40's back in Ohio). Interestingly once the rocket was fueled it stayed that way ready to go.

Below is a closer view of the lid that traveled on railroad rails with our tour guide Jim explaining it's operation. About one third of the lid is now plexiglas that allows you to look down on the top of the missile and see the full 103 foot length of it.

Below is the entry point for all the underground operations. Today two warning signs probably warn you of your greatest danger on the visit - watch your head, and watch for rattlesnakes. When the silo was active entry was complex. The two missile commanders relieving the ones below had to make a phone call from topside. If they did not call again from the second phone underground within a certain length of time then the guys below called security and no more doors were opened. The next phone call involved reporting to the guys currently on duty a code that the new guys brought with them from the command center at the Air Force Base in Tucson. Once the code was given the piece of paper was burned and dropped in a can painted red at the door.

Below is the main entry door to the command center.

It was about three feet thick and closed on machined surfaces (the dark surface around the door that Jim is standing in. Jim had Joan move this door weighing 6 tons just by leaning on it.

Below we are in the command center where the missiles would have been launched from. Check out the racks of equipment with round gauges, switches, etc.

Here Joan is listening to instructions from Jim on how they were going to do a launch sequence. You've probably seen this in the movies - two keys kept in a locked red box, inserted and turned at the same time by two different people more than arms length apart, etc., etc. Three targets were available but neither of the people knew what they were only that they were pre-programmed and one was selected prior to launch and came with the orders from somewhere.

Below is the real deal looking up towards the black nose that would have contained the nuke.

The Titan II could deliver a nuke warhead to a range of 6,000 to 9,000 miles and was probably to a target in Russia, likely one of their missile bases. The launch sequence was only a matter of minutes and once the missile was launched there was no canceling or changing targets. One thing that surprised me was that the Titan missile went to orbit altitude of 600-800 miles and then the warhead was guided to it's target in free fall. Somehow I always thought that the missile was sub-orbital and delivered under power all the way to the target. The Titan was used in the early Gemini space program to launch the Gemini space capsules.

One of the questions that I asked Jim was what about the people in the area. The perimeter fence didn't cover a very large area and was there risk if anyone was nearby at a launch. Well I guess it didn't really matter because it was a pretty sure thing that one of Russia's missiles was headed this way and the whole area was going to be annililated anyhow.

Well, this was an interesting tour that I would recommend to anyone. It gives a closeup of some really scary parts of US history and leaves you feeling glad that no one ever had to turn those keys.

The second part of our day trip was going to be to the aircraft "boneyard" up by Tucson. We made a hasty trip up there using Amelia to get us directly there but alas it was too late to take a tour so that will have to wait for another day. Joan and I had dinner at the Arizona Inn, a quaint 1930's hotel close to the Arizona State campus. Excellent meal!

Life is good!