Fairly close to the Eastern entrance to Badlands National Park
is the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. This small and relatively new park offers
tours to 6 people at a time every half hour to view the launch facility for a
former Minuteman Missile. The tour includes the above ground living quarters
and then takes an elevator to the underground launch room. We ended up with extra time before the tour to
poke around the Badlands and have breakfast. We spent much more time there in 2004, but it
was delightful to return.
Then we took the tour.
It was interesting to look back at a little piece of the Cold War. Our tour guide was actually a former
missileer who had been stationed in that launch site. A curious profession: demanding readiness
while being a relatively boring job. In
case you want to know, there is no big red button to push – it was all designed
with every possible security. We also
saw a former missile silo.
And how does one launch a missile?
Two missileers are assigned to an ultra-secured underground
launch site while a security force and cook are stationed above ground.
The siren sounds.
Encoded instructions come in.
They both decode the message.
They each open a padlocked box containing the launch keys.
They both go to separate ends of the room.
They both insert their keys
And they have to turn their keys within two seconds of each
other.
So glad at least so far that the US has not had to activate one of
these missiles.
As we continued along we saw the Bighorn Mountains in the distance.
Day 3 Stats - Thur 6/19
Interior SD to Butte MT
694mi for the day (including excursions)
2544 mi total
42 state license plates spotted
4 provinces
