9/16/2023 0 Comments Minuteman missile silo tourQuebec 01 Missile Alert Facility State Historic Site, once open, will offer the visitor the opportunity to see a military installation that was “hidden in plain sight” and controlled one of the most destructive nuclear weapons ever built by the United States. This site is significant as the only accessible Peacekeeper Missile Alert Facility left in the world and will strive to preserve and interpret the Cold War history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, fostering an understanding of the mission and duties of the personnel and crews assigned to work there. Wyoming State Parks is preparing the Q-01 Missile Alert Facility (Launch Control Facility) as the newest state historic site. Learn more by visiting: .us/index.php/places-to-go/quebec-01 Q-01 was part of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing/Missile Wing, initially as a Minuteman site (1962-1986) but then as one of five Peacekeeper Missile Control Centers in the 400th Missile Squadron (1986-2005). Delve into the daily lives of missileers, topside personnel, missile technology, the Cold War, and the deactivation of this missile system. Quebec-01 Missile Alert Facility State Historic Site offers the opportunity to see a military installation that was “hidden in plain sight” and controlled one of the most destructive nuclear weapons ever built by the United States. The site strives to preserve and interpret the Cold War history of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, fostering an understanding of the mission and duties of the personnel assigned to work there. Quebec-1 is significant as the only accessible Peacekeeper Missile Alert Facility left in the world. It's practically impossible to get your head round the whole scenario.Wyoming State Parks opened the Q-01 Missile Alert Facility (Launch Control Facility) as the newest state historic site. That would have meant waiting for suffocation in the silo – or committing suicide to speed things up – or going up to the surface and into a potential nuclear wasteland, where they wouldn't have had anywhere to go anyway, not even any means of transport … bleak indeed. If no orders came they were to consider themselves automatically released from duty … and basically left to fend for themselves. 30 days is as long as their supplies of air, food and water would have lasted. The next question you may possibly also be asking yourself at this point is: and what then? What would the crew have done after the launch? Simply wait for the end of the world? Inside their control centre? In their beds? Would they have gone outside? The quasi "official" answer my guide gave was this: provided they had survived any incoming enemy missiles to begin with, they would have had standing orders to remain in the silo for up to 30 days and wait for further instructions to come by radio or phone. The missile, however, remained undamaged (and was unarmed at the time). (This accident was later dramatized in the TV film "Disaster at Silo 7".) The worst accident by death toll happened in 1965, when during repairs, 53 civilian contract workers were killed in a fire inside another Titan silo in Arkansas caused by a welder igniting hydraulic oil. Luckily the safety mechanism in the warhead prevented a nuclear detonation. The silo was evacuated and measures to vent the fuel fumes out of the silo began, but the worst could not be stopped: the missile exploded in its silo, blowing the 750 ton silo door off and depositing the second stage and the warhead hundreds of feet from the silo. A particularly dramatic accident happened in 1980, in Damascus, Arkansas, when a tool dropped by a serviceman caused a rupture in the missile's fuel tank. The main downside of the missile's fuel cocktail was not just its toxicity, but also the risk of self ignition if the two substances accidentally met, e.g. > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Combinations with other dark destinations It's both mega cool and mega scary at the same time. a simulated start of the nuclear apocalypse that would have been World War Three. Guided tours include a simulated launch sequence – i.e. As such it is one of the prime sites worldwide for nuclear tourism – or for any dark tourist with an interest in this most disturbing side of contemporary history. It's a unique site illustrating the superpowers' frightening MAD readiness for all-out nuclear Armageddon during the Cold War era. The site, near Tuscon Arizona, has been preserved as a "museum" to serve as a reminder of what was once the USA's most powerful component of its land-based nuclear deterrent. The only surviving Titan II ICBM missile silo open to the public, complete with a deactivated missile, its launch control centre and all other support equipment still in situ.
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