South of Tucson in an empty desert the United States dug a hole in the ground to protect a Titan Missle. This very expensive hole is now home to the Titan Missile Museum. Now almost seventy years later the previously empty desert is occupied by numerous cities and the retired missile is on display inside the museum.
About missiles and rockets
The terms missile and rockets are often used interchangeably. All big missies have rocket engines. Missile refers to the projectile. Rocket usually refers to the engine. Not all rockets are missiles. Rockets, not missiles deliver satellites into orbit. When the term missile is used, it means the rocket is intended to create damage.
To further explain, rockets sometimes have solid fuel engines and others have liquid fuel engines. Titan II missiles had liquid fuel engines. The space shuttle (a rocket space plane with two solid fuel rockets) had a combination of both solid fuel booster rockets and a huge fuel tank. By far the largest part of the space shuttle was the fuel tank.
Underground missile silos
This entire effort was part of the nuclear defense program. The reason the missile silos were underground was to protect them during a nuclear attack so that they could still operate after a nearby nuclear explosion. There were 54 Titan underground missile silos scattered around the country. The plan was that any one of these missiles could destroy an entire city. The missiles in these silos have never been fired during a war; the only flights by the Titan missiles were tests. Better missiles eventually replaced all the Titan missiles and these better missiles made these Titan missile silos obsolete.
ICBM Program
The Titan missile is part of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program. The tactic was developed from the creation of the German V2 rocket program during World War II. The V2 rocket went to the edge of space and could travel 200 miles. The definition of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a rocket that can go more than 3400 hundred miles from one continent to another.
The Soviet Union fielded the first ICBM in 1953. This missile was the R-7 Semyorka and was designed to carry the Soviet hydrogen bomb. This rocket proved that it was powerful enough to achieve earth orbit and most famously, the R-7 rocket carried the Sputnik satellite into space.
The first United States ICBM was the Atlas missile. It wasn’t until 1959 that the first Atlas missile launch was successful. The three-stage Atlas missile was quickly replaced with the far-advanced two-stage Titan missile. The Atlas missile required hours to prepare the missile for launch and the Titan missile could be ready to launch in minutes.
Ballistic
The term ballistic described missiles which when shot followed a path without course correction to the target. This describes the German V-2 rocket and all ICBMs after that. By the time the Titan missile was fielded, the term ballistic didn’t completely apply because course corrections were made after the initial launch. The thruster pictured below makes the final course correction. After that course correction, the missile is ballistic.
Fire and forget
Like a bullet, ICBMs once launched don’t require any ground control action. Everything on an ICBM is automatic and contained in the missile. After launch, the missile will either hit the target or not hit the target.
One big bomb
One big bomb describes both the Atlas and Titan Missile program’s design. Both of these missiles had the common design of only carrying one warhead. The Titan Missile carried the largest single warhead ever created by the United States. The Titan launched a nine-megaton nuclear warhead. The Titan Missile was replaced with the Minuteman Missiles with each Minuteman missile carrying multiple (smaller) warheads. Each of the multiple warheads could be targeted at different locations. When talking about warhead size, small is a relative term, a small nuclear warhead can destroy a city.
Manned Space flight
The Mercury and Gemini programs for manned space flight used these rockets and this rocket technology as part of the manned space flight programs. The Titan II rocket in the Titan Missile Museum is the very same model rocket that carried the Gemini space capsules into space. The obvious difference was that the Gemini spaceflight program didn’t launch from an underground silo and the warhead was replaced by the space capsule. Before seeing the rocket I didn’t know that the Titan II missile was the same rocket that carried the Gemini capsule but as soon as I saw it, it was obviously the same rocket.
Missiles converted to rockets
Titan and Atlas missiles both were adapted by NASA and used as rockets. The first two Mercury space launches were made on Redstone rockets. The following four Mercury missions were on converted Atlas rockets. In the Gemini Program, all twelve flights were made on modified Titan II rockets. In the Gemini Program, two launches were unmanned and the following ten missions were manned.
After the Titan missile program ended many of the Titan II missiles were converted to deliver satellites into orbit and others were converted to be used as museum displays. Titan II missiles were launched both from Florida and California mostly delivering military satellites into orbit. The Titan III rockets were modified Titan II designs some with solid rocket boosters and higher power second stages.
Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 // Titan II ICBM Site 571-7
Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 // Titan II ICBM Site 571-7 is now the Titan Missile Museum. It is located in Green Valley, Arizona. The 54 missiles in the Titan II ICBM program were located in sites scattered in Arizona, Arkansas, and Kansas. The last Titan missiles site was deactivated in 1987.
How the Titan missile program worked
One (or more than one) of the 54 Titan missiles was armed and fueled ready for launch at all times for 24 years. The fuel for the missile was liquid hydrazine. In a separate container contained liquid tetroxide. When the hydrazine (fuel) and tetroxide (oxygen) combined this created fire and thrust. Once the maintenance crew fueled the missile, it was ready for flight.
Once the missile was fueled, the control room access door was shut and locked from the inside. During shift changes, the new crew would arrive exactly on time or they were not allowed entry into the silo. Any early arrival or delay of the arrival of the relief crew was assumed to be an attack on the missile silo. The crew inside the silo would simply not open the doors and once closed from the inside, they could only be opened from the inside. Given the size of the doors and locks, entering from the outside would require days or maybe even weeks to break into a silo.
Each Titan missile was programmed with three targets. If a missile launch was ordered, then the launch order would specify which of the three targets the launch crew would select. The launch crew didn’t know the destination of the missile, but rather it was one of the three pre-programmed flight profiles.
Titan Missile Museum
The Titan Missile Museum site in Green Valley, Arizona was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994. The nonprofit Arizona Aerospace Foundation operates the Titan Missile Museum. The Arizona Aerospace Foundation also operates the Pima County Aerospace Museum.
Inside the museum is a preserved and unfueled and unarmed Titan II rocket enclosed in the silo with the silo blast door half open to prove to the world that the missile site is not operational. The blast door is blocked from opening any further proving that the missile silo is not operational. Over the top of the now half-open silo is a glass greenhouse structure to prevent rain and weather from entering.
The Titan Missile Museum is the only intact Titan II complex open to the public. Some of the 54 silos were destroyed or filled in, others were sold as scrap and a few are privately owned.
The museum contains an above-ground visitors center and three below-ground portions of the facility. The below-ground parts of the museum are intact with each chamber’s original equipment on display for the visitors.
Our visit
We enjoyed our visit to the Titan Missile Museum and learning about the history of the program. There is an advanced tour that someday I would like to take. The advanced tour explores nearly every corner of the missile silo and complex.
Video
This video was produced by the Martin company (Later Martin-Marietta and then even later Lockheed Martin) in the early 1960s and was instrumental in creating the Titan Missile system.
Please subscribe and join us on our journey
We will add you to our email list and send you updates about once a week. Here is a link. Subscribe
About our links
As you know, our blog income is zero – this allows us to be independent and just tell the truth. We do not get income or commissions. No, we don’t make paid endorsements. We don’t make recommendations but instead, we will tell you what we like (or dislike). The links are only provided as a quick reference to help our readers.
National Park Service about the Atlas Missile
National Park Service about the Titan Missile
National Park Service about the Minuteman Missile
Minuteman Missile National Historic Site
Our visit to the site of the first nuclear explosion
Our visit to the Evergreen Aviation Museum
Our visit to the Pima Air & Space Museum
Our visit to a Space Launch at Cape Canaveral & Kennedy Space Center
Our visit to Classic Rotors, a One-of-a-Kind helicopter (rescue) museum
About Comments
We love seeing your comments but they are not automatic. I get about twenty spam comments every day and thus I don’t have automatic comments. I read and then publish every comment personally to protect the blog and keep it on the subject and real. So what this means for you is that you will not see your comment right after you hit submit. Sorry for the delay in publishing your comments. Please know that we love hearing from you.
Thanks Scott, great virtual tour with a lot of information that I did not know anything about. Safe travels. Chip
I am happy all the real details are still Top Secret. I am actually amazed that we were allowed to tour a decommissioned silo. Just try to get a tour of a ballistic missile submarine. I hope it never happens.
That site was one of the coolest places we visited from our years on the road. We just loved the whole experience – it was the perfect mix of science, history, and apocalyptic horror movie material. I’m glad you guys enjoyed it too. If you do get the chance to do the full length tour, it’s definitely interesting. Stay well!