Today’s post is not so much about the endeavor to make a high quality photo but about our history and the desire to learn about it. Just outside of Badlands National Park is the Minuteman Missile National Historical Site. Part of it, and just a few miles down the Interstate to the west, is the former launching site and silo, Delta-09, for a Minuteman II nuclear missile.
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site was established in 1999 to preserve two Minuteman II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) sites: Launch Control Facility Delta-01 and a corresponding underground Launch Control Center and Launch Facility (Missile Silo) Delta-09. Minuteman Missile is the first national park unit specifically designated to commemorate the Cold War. From 1963 until the early 1990s, Missile Silo Delta-09 contained a fully operational Minuteman Missile, bearing a 1.2 megaton nuclear warhead. The Delta-09 missile silo was one of 150 spread across western South Dakota. In total there were 1,000 Minuteman's deployed from the 1960's into the early 1990’s. In 1991 as the Cold War was coming to an end, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed by US President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Both sides agreed to dramatically reduce their nuclear arms. The missile in the silo is unarmed today but it was armed with a W-56 warhead of 1.2 megatons of explosive force. That destructive power is equivalent to one-third of all the bombs used during World War II, including both atomic bombs. (source: National Park Service brochure and website)
Joan and I use every opportunity to go into visitor centers or museums beside the nature adventures during our trips. This one left quite an impression on us and delivered lots of information to talk about and to digest. From a human standpoint, what a waste of resources on both sides of the political landscape and understandable only in the context of history. After I was discharged from the military more than 36 years ago in East Germany, I would never have dreamed about that I ever would look into the silo of an American nuclear missile…
Everybody can probably make these two shots with their smartphones. The glass that covers the silo these days returns some reflections but we get the idea. The second photo shows the glass covered silo and in the foreground we can see the steel and concrete cover of the Ultra High Frequency antenna that allowed to launch the missile from an airborne command in case the control centers were destroyed already by a Soviet nuclear attack...
During our ongoing travels we discovered two more former missile silos. We would not have recognized it as such in the middle of grassland and prairie without the visit at the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site…