Titan Missile Museum

When I arrived at Titan II ICBM Site 571-7 for the morning’s first tour, I was first greeted by the sight of a towering high frequency discage antenna adjacent to the museum’s parking lot. All Titan ICBM launch complexes were equipped with this single, soft, frequency-diversity antenna (backed up by two identical hard antennas), for inter-complex and external radio communications.

About 200 feet beyond the antenna, situated near the access portal to the underground launch control center, is the museum’s visitor center and gift shop. One-hour tours start from here at multiple times throughout the day, and are available on a first-come first-served basis. I’d liked to have taken a five-hour “top-to-bottom" tour through the entire complex, but that required advance reservations and they only have them on certain days of the month — and my road trip wasn’t really structured enough to even say where I would be on a given day. So the one-hour was going to have to tide me over until I found an opportunity to return and see more of the site.

Before I delve into photographs from the tour, I thought it would be interesting to share excerpts from some of the printed material I have in my personal collection, from the Titan ICBM program. It gives things some interesting context, and outlines some of the technical aspects of the missile, as well as the layout of the undergound base. Both are from The Martin Company, which was assigned the task of creating a new ICBM (Weapon System 107A-2) by the USAF in 1955. Titan I silos came online in 1960, the same year The Martin Company was awarded a contract to develop the Titan II. The first Titan had a number of drawbacks, like the fact that a missile had to be fueled and raised from the hardened silo to launch at ground-level, giving it a 15-minute response time. The Titan II and its new launch compound were designed to remedy things, launching right out of the silo, and response times were cut to around a minute. Ultimately, Titan I missiles would be scrapped and their bases decommissioned, after Defense Secretary Robert McNamara pulled the plug on them in 1965, in favor of the newer Titan II.

Something I find interesting in one of the brochures, is the reference to Titan I and II’s potential as a launch vehicle for future orbital spacecraft and the exploration of deep space. The idea that this technology could put us on a path where we have a future beyond the confines of Earth, while it was primarily designed to ensure that great numbers of people would have no future on Earth, if someone or something kicked off a nuclear war, is a profound irony. While the Titan II did eventually see use as a launch vehicle for all crewed Gemini missions, and evolved into subsequent Titan versions that would be used to launch interplanetary spacecraft like NASA’s two Voyager missions, I think it’s unfortunate, to say the least, that American technological progress tends to find purpose and drive as a weapon before all else. And all too often, the fantastic futures we are promised with each new advancement never really materialize, amounting to nothing more than a fanciful distraction from the horrors delivered by the new technology in reality's present. That said, the things that we achieve and master in the pursuit of a weapon system like this, and the resources and organization that can be mobilized to make it happen, is pretty amazing to me. It shows that we could maybe actually have the fantastic future, or at least solve some very big and complicated problems that would contribute to a better future, if there was some kind of massive shift in priorities.

The Titan II was the largest ICBM ever deployed by the USAF, standing 103 feet tall, 10 feet in diameter, and weighing in at around 330,000 pounds. Its range was 9,300 miles, which was 3,000 miles greater than the Titan I, and it carried a W53 warhead with 9 megatons of explosive power. This was twice as powerful as any other ICBM’s warhead, and “three times the explosive power of all the bombs used during World War II, including both atomic bombs.”

As described by the Titan Missile Museum’s website:

“From liftoff to target, the flight time was 30 minutes. Only 5.5 minutes of that was powered flight. The other 24.5 minutes was ballistic free flight. Each site consisted of a missile silo, a launch control facility and an access portal. The sites were staffed 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, by 4-person missile combat crews who deployed to the missile sites for 24-hour shifts, called alerts. Each crew pulled an average of 8 to 9 alerts a month, meaning they often worked the equivalent of 5 weeks in a 4-week month. Crew members consisted of two officers—the Missile Combat Crew Commander (MCCC) and the Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC), and two enlisted personnel—the Ballistic Missile Analyst Technician (BMAT) and the Missile Facilities Technician (MFT).“

“Fifty-four Titan II ICBMs were deployed in groups of eighteen around three Air Force Bases, with the first units coming on alert in early 1963. All fifty-four missiles were on alert by December of that year. Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona hosted the 390th Strategic Missile Wing (SMW) which was comprised of the 570th and 571st Strategic Missile Squadrons (SMS). Little Rock AFB, Arkansas hosted the 308th SMW which was comprised of the 373rd SMS and 374th SMS. And McConnell AFB, Kansas hosted the 381st SMW which was comprised of the 532nd SMS and 533rd SMS.”

Coincidentally, I live in Wichita, Kansas, where McConnell AFB resides, and grew up in the area, so as a kid I lived with 18 of these things in my backyard. As designed, the Titan II program was only intended to operate for 10 years max, and was originally scheduled for site deactivation beginning in 1971. Upgrades extended its life into the mid-1980s though, with the last site being deactivated as late as 1987 (deactivation started in 1982, after two terrible accidents). I would have been 7 years old at the time. Interestingly, I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning the presence of so many nukes sleeping under us out here in Kansas' farmlands, and as a result I grew up without any knowledge of the things. I did have an understanding of what nuclear weapons and missile silos were though, after seeing movies like War Games and Damnation Alley at a young age. And thanks to the latter, I knew if the nukes didn’t kill me, radioactive bugs most certainly would.

The Making of the Museum

Launch complex 571-7 came off alert on November 11, 1982, with the work to turn it into a museum beginning in February of 1983. It would require several modifications before it could open — all for the purpose of demonstrating it was no longer an operational site. Before the missile went on display in the silo, it had holes cut in each of its propellant tanks and in the reentry vehicle’s heat shield, and was displayed on the surface of the site for 30 days. This allowed time for foreign satellites to confirm that it was no longer operational. And this wasn’t the missile that originally resided in the silo — it is a real Titan II, but it was reserved for training and never contained fuel, oxidizer, or a warhead. The missile was then installed in the launch duct, after which the silo closure door was lodged permanently in the half-open position, with six large concrete blocks preventing it from opening any further. A large window was installed over the opening to allow visitor and satellite viewing going forward. Beyond that, the site was preserved in as close a state as possible to its operational life during the Cold War, and on May 21, 1986, the Titan Missile Museum was opened to the public. What follows are pics from my journey underground, ending with some views from the surface.