So Boxing day stirs, and the world sluggishly starts to churn again.
I’m running out of clean clothes so a quick trip to the coin laundry is in order – I’d have done it yesterday but nowhere was open!
After the home duties are out of the way, I check and the Titan Missile Museum is open today. It’s about 30 mins south of Tuscon, so Charlotte and I load up and head off.
The Museum is a preserved Titan II missile site, one of three sites that used to house 54 Titan II missile sites that were on alert across the United States from 1963 to 1987.
It’s fascinating. A relic back to the cold war, when the States and the Soviet Union nearly brought us to the brink of planetary annihilation.
The tour takes you down into the actual missile silo itself – the regular tour is restricted to the command centre and the outside of the site. There is a new top to bottom tour being made available this year but it’s not available yet.
The guide is a commander who manned this exact silo when it was operational – he talks us through the protocols of what they did, including a mock launch. I’m fascinated by the technology as much as by the process – everything looks so outdated now!
We run a simulated launch drill – the titan could be theoretically be launched within 58 seconds, which was it’s huge advantage at the time.
Afterwards we get taken to the actual silo where we see a Titan close up.
It’s huge – given its range of around 6300 miles, it took a lot of fuel to get to cruising speed, and with older tech, that meant more physical space and size.
A quick tour outside and a chance to look down on the missile – the silo doors are permanently locked in a half open position so it cant be launched but so that spy satellites can see into it! We also get to see one of the rocket engines up close
We even get a look up close at the rocket engines used to propel this behemoth into space.
All in all a fantastic hour or so looking into the past. The tech – analogue, archaic and so unlike our modern digital existence, seems a world away. the modern part of me scoffs that this could even work, but the reality is this was developed and built in my lifetime – the Titan 3s are from the late 70s, early 80s.
It brings a physical reality to the tools of war – and the enormity of nuclear destruction.
Its a massive recommendation if you ever get out this way.
