Titan Missile Site

Yesterday after a much needed "down" day we hit the road to visit the Titan Missile Site. Interestingly, the freeway road signs here in the Tucson area have milage in kilometers instead of miles. I have never seen that before.

Moving on..... In 1963, 54 missile sites were built in Arizona, Kansas & Oklahoma. These were a Cold War "deterrent" to nuclear war. This is the only one remaining. Or so we were told.

We took a guided tour underground and saw where it could have all gone down.The concrete walls are up to 7 feet thick in places. This clock was set at Greenwich Mean Time so there would be no error due to time zones.

In the event of a Presidential notice, there would be a series of codes leading to an envelope with a predetermined message locked in this red filing cabinet.

Two keys had to be turned within 2 seconds of each other for a 5 second duration on the control panel. All this was able to activate the missile within 58 seconds. Outside the door would open and the missile would launch.

The missiles were programmed to hit either Target 1, Target 2, or Target 3. Our location was set at Target 2. The target location was not revealed to anyone (or so we're told). Just in case we became friends with Russia I guess. Once dismantled the rocket was exposed on the grounds for two years to prove the nuclear warhead had been removed.