Titan Missile Museum

This was a unique museum. There can't be any other missile museum on a Titan II silo site with a Titan II missile inside because the Salt II treaty that Reagan signed with the USSR required us to blow up all the other silos and dismantling all the missiles. There is a special exception for this silo and missile. It's allowed to exist for educational purposes, but the lid of the silo must be opened so the Russians can use satellites to verify the missile is not active, plus they can come over and spend $8.50 for a ticket and take the tour like we did.

What you see when you get to the museum is the building they built to house the offices, gift shop and briefing room, all of which didn't exist when the site was active.  Everything else is underground with lids a few feet above the ground.  There are also a lot of nice cactus beds that were flowering this time of year.


You go into the silo via a set of 55 steps the way the airmen did when they reported to work. There is also a handicapped elevator that use to be for freight.


Since the silo is hardened against a direct nuclear strike there was a lot of thick walls made of reinforced concrete and steel.  Doors were 4', 6', and 8' feet thick as you got deeper into the silo.


Once we got into the control room where the officers would launch the missiles, the guide, who actually worked there when he was in the Air Force, walked us through the process of how they would get the command to launch a missile if it were every required. There were alarms, flashing light and recorded messages to put a little real life into the tour.

Next we went to the part of the silo where the missile was housed, a few hundred feet away through a tunnel.



From the photos you can see we were about half way up the missile looking up.

Next we went outside to see the missile from above, which you could do because the large concrete lid was slide open.


Inside the museum there were a few interesting displays including the ones related to some movies shot at the museum including one of the Star Trek movies.

I have a number of additional photos on Flickr