scenic drive, minuteman missile

i drove back from devils tower through a scenic route, from the town of spearfish to savoy. it was at the bottom of a canyon so i drove along side a flowing river with huge steep mountains on both sides. its so steep and the road is very curvy, so the sun dose not even come through very well. then i drove back to rapid city for a little while to plan everything out. i slept in the badlands and finally found a way to get a decent night sleep. today i went to the minuteman missile site. it was really cool to see, and the guy in charge of it dose a great job of really putting you in that situation.

http://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm

 old wagon just sitting in the town right outside of the badlands, interior,

sitting\eating area for the 8 man crew of the minuteman site

 area to watch tv

 layout of the site

 blast door between the 2 men inside the launch room

 the thickness of the dooe

 the whole place the 2 men sit is a shock absorbing bubble. it can move up to 2 feet if there were an explosion

 one of 2 key ports for the launch. the middle on chooses the battle plan A, or B

 inside that bubble the men sit in

 antenna outside the place. if that one were to be destroyed in a blast there are 4 more in the ground that would shoot out of the ground, the red circles. they would shoot out one if that got destroyed then one more would come out, if destroyed, one more.... 

 what it looks like from the outside

 this pic it tricky, it is a concrete door over the missile, 400 tons. it is on the track you can see. it have a ballistics trigger to open. so when they hit launch this explodes open, he said it happens so fast it fly's through the fence you see. about 30 feet

missile, only about 5.5 feet wide at the bottom and 55 feet tall.