minuteman missile
peering down into a missile silo
seemingly doomed herd of cattle
The high plains apparently served as a good location for intercontinental ballistic missile silos because the ground elevation there would have saved a lot of launch energy and flight time for the missiles. Advancements in nuclear weapon technology have rendered most of the silos (constructed in the 1960s) obsolete, but the one pictured above has been converted into the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. The tiny museum with a short film occupies a trailer, but the silo is well worth stopping to peer into.
The missile in that silo would have reached its targeted communities in 30 minutes. 30 minutes says two things: 1) the missiles are very fast, and 2) the population of families, cooks, farmers, steelworkers, students, prisoners, office workers, nurses, artists, criminals, bartenders, hairdressers, and street vendors, etc. making their livings in the areas targeted are in so many ways very close to us -just over the horizon.
Great Plains scavenger hunt item #9: missile silo
A missile silo is an underground, vertical cylindrical container for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). They typically have the missile some distance under the surface, protected by a large "blast door" on top.
-Wikipedia
1 comment:
It is eerie to come across such a thing in God's country. In a way, it is fitting too.
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