Titan Missile Museum
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The Titan Missile Museum is run by the Arizona Aerospace Foundation and is located in Green Valley in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is located roughly 20 km south of Tucson and features a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile still in its silo. It is kept without an active warhead and without any fuel. The missile currently in the silo was actually never an active missile. It had been used at another facility for the training of all Titan Missile crews. The support facilities at the site remain intact, complete with their original equipment.
The silo became operational in 1963 and was deactivated in 1982 as part of President Reagan's policy (announced in 1981) of decommissioning the Titan II rockets. All Titan II silos were destroyed except for this one. It is now a National Historic Landmark.
In addition to being a National Historical Landmark, several sequences in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact were filmed at the Titan Missile Museum.
[edit] Yield and Warhead
The Titan II Missile was the largest land based nuclear missile on active duty for the United States. The missile contained one W53 warhead with a yield of 9 Megatons (9,000 kilotons).
The facility's highest state of alert was November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was shot. When news of the shooting broke, the keys used to launch the missile were ordered to be placed on the tables at the central consoles to prepare for a possible launch order. The Pentagon did not yet know whether the Soviet Union had committed an act of war. The keys were not, however, placed in the keyholes.
At the visitor center there is a small museum putting the Titan within the context of the Cold War. In addition, tours of the above and underground installations around the missile are available. Included in this tour is a demonstration of the sequence of steps that would have been taken to launch the missile. These tours last about an hour and start on the hour between 9am and 4pm. The underground corridors are somewhat narrow and hardhats are required for anyone who is 5'10" tall or taller. These are provided at the start of the tour when visitors watch a video on the history of the Titan II. To get to the control room visitors normally need to walk up and down 55 steps, but on request an elevator is available. Special behind the scenes tours are also available which allow the pubic to visit more areas of the underground missile site. These tours are offered by reservation only and may be made through the museum's web site.
