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                                                             on Gopher (inofficial)
 (HTM) Visit Hacker News on the Web
       
       
       COMMENT PAGE FOR:
 (HTM)   US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
       
       
        jdleesmiller wrote 17 hours 22 min ago:
        Does anyone have any recommendations on books about nuclear deterrence?
        I found the Bret Devereaux article from 2022 [1] very interesting and
        wondered where one might learn more about this thing that keeps us all
        alive (so far).
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://acoup.blog/2022/03/11/collections-nuclear-deterrence-1...
       
        robszumski wrote 17 hours 50 min ago:
        I just finished reading Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen –
        it was great. The book walks through a minute by minute scenario from
        the second of launch through the satellite detection, alerting of
        forces, decision making challenges, evac and continuity of government
        during a nuclear exchange. Highly recommend.
       
          mtreis86 wrote 17 hours 47 min ago:
          She was also recently on Hardcore History Addendum with Dan Carlin
          discussing the book.
       
            ricksunny wrote 17 hours 9 min ago:
            What do you think of her also-very-nuclear-related 
            "Area 51: an Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military
            Base" (2011)?
            
            (leaving aside the frequently-repudiated Mengele-Stalin slant of
            the excerpt at the end, a la [1] ' Barnes, the Roadrunners'
            president, said he believes the childlike aviator tale was
            fabricated to give the publisher something "juicy" and "sensational
            ')
            
            She frames a very unique angle on James Killian (of MIT 'Killian
            Court' fame) in context of Pacific thermonuclear nuclear tests, for
            example.
            
 (HTM)      [1]: https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/area-5...
       
        yencabulator wrote 18 hours 18 min ago:
        To give you an idea of what kinds of grim circumstances this was built
        for, the seats have 4-point seatbelts!
       
          jabits wrote 17 hours 16 min ago:
          Yes, we were strapped in for quite a shaking…
       
        EMM_386 wrote 18 hours 26 min ago:
        That's amazing.
        
        It's terrifying to take a step back from this and think about how much
        incredibly sophisticated technology had to go into ensuring that we
        could wipe out the human race in minutes.
        
        And then, of course, there's all the technology handling the safety
        guards.  Because we obviously don't want to wipe out the human race in
        minutes, so we have all these protocols and failsafes to ensure that
        doesn't happen unless it's really supposed to happen.
        
        All for ... nothing.
        
        Nothing, in the sense that every time Russia built more ICBMs the US
        had to build more ICBMs.  That tit-for-tat got to incredibly absurd
        levels.
        
        So all of this ludicrously complex technologies, from the missiles
        travelling to space, the lauching of multiple guided warheads, the
        safety guards and nuclear weapons, the trillions of dollars ... for
        nothing.  All a game of "mine is bigger than yours" for strategic
        deterence.
        
        Hopefully it stays that way.
       
          stevenwoo wrote 17 hours 11 min ago:
          John Von Neumann comes up in a lot of tech topics but he had some
          monstrous  opinions particularly on this - he thought game theory
          proved that USSR and USA would go to war if both sides had nukes and
          recommended the USA strike first in order to win in the early years
          of USA almost monopoly on nukes.
       
          office_drone wrote 18 hours 9 min ago:
          > ... had to go into ensuring that we could wipe out the human race
          in minutes.
          
          That was never ensured. Historical casualty projections expected
          that, in the event of large scale nuclear attacks, the majority of
          the involved countries' populations would survive not only the attack
          but the conditions afterward.
       
            candiddevmike wrote 18 hours 5 min ago:
            For how much afterwards though?
       
              jasomill wrote 15 hours 47 min ago:
              Indefinitely, even in the case of near-total destruction.
              
              While not exactly historical fiction, this scene from Dr.
              Strangelove comes to mind:
              
 (HTM)        [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y
       
        optimalsolver wrote 19 hours 15 min ago:
        This kind of place was best captured by opening scene of Wargames:
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6aCpS0-yls
       
        jabits wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
        This is a remarkably real view of the Minuteman Launch Control Center
        in the early to mid-80s for sure. The accompanying audio is realistic
        as well except all six comm systems would be blaring at once and
        several printers would be clacking away… It was very intense,
        demanding job.
        
        I was a Launch Control Officer for five years in the mid-80s out of FE
        Warren AFB in Cheyenne WY. My squadron was the 320th Strategic Missile
        Squadron with all 5 capsules and 50 missiles were physically in western
        NE, with the furthest over 100 miles away in Sidney NE. I spent 335
        days underground over the 5 year period.
       
          CapitalistCartr wrote 17 hours 43 min ago:
          Wow, I was there at the same time as a 46350. The Northern Tier was a
          (unappreciated) masterpiece of the Cold War.
       
            jabits wrote 15 hours 22 min ago:
            I have to believe it was pretty stressful on your end too! One of
            the biggest pressures of the job was dealing with all the
            classified and the stuff you had to deal was the same I’m sure.
            
            Hope you are well!
       
          _boffin_ wrote 18 hours 4 min ago:
          Recommend any good non-fiction or even fiction books that talk about
          these experiences?
       
            rurp wrote 15 hours 44 min ago:
            Command and Control by Schlosser is a great book about nuclear
            weapon strategy and policy during the cold war. Much of the book is
            about a disaster at a large ICBM silo. It's both fascinating and
            terrifying.
       
          choeger wrote 18 hours 28 min ago:
          Considering that when the launch order came, MAD had probably already
          failed: Would you have obeyed the order and killed a few million
          people?
       
            jabits wrote 17 hours 57 min ago:
            I’ve oftened wondered that over the years. Maybe that’s why the
            young ones are usually on the front lines. Another related possibly
            more difficult, is how many of us would have turned the key without
            prior world tensions occurring. Before each alert we received a
            pre-departure briefing on current world conditions. I think an
            out-of-the-blue order would have been very difficult… We
            periodically lost a crew member due to internal personal changes
            with respect to one’s willingness to follow through. One of my
            early Commanders pulled himself off and left the service to become
            a Greek Orthodox priest and is still at it today.
       
              dmd wrote 15 hours 49 min ago:
              Did you not have drills where you weren’t told it was a drill?
       
                jabits wrote 15 hours 25 min ago:
                No we did not. We were heavily trained and frequently evaluated
                but never believing it was real in that sense. Things happen in
                the world for which increased level of readiness occurred, but
                as the fixed pillar of the Strategic Triad, we were always in a
                higher state of readiness.
       
        graupel wrote 19 hours 46 min ago:
        I live fairly close to the wonderful museum this is located at on Hill
        Air Force Base north of SLC.
        
        This new exhibit is really neat but not very big, all things
        considered, and not worth the trip on its own.
        
        What is worth the trip is the museum as a whole, with an F-117, the
        only SR-71C in existence, an F22, and all kinds of other planes and
        rockets - it's not Wright-Patterson, but it's one of the better USAF
        museums I've been to.
       
          dpifke wrote 18 hours 43 min ago:
          The museum at Edwards AFB in California is amazing[0], but is located
          on the base so you have to get prior permission to visit it as a
          civilian.
          
          When I was there a few years back, they were fundraising to move the
          museum to a more publicly accessible location.    It looks like that
          was successful, and it will be re-opening soon: [1] [0]:
          
 (HTM)    [1]: https://www.desertnews.com/news/article_c95e0a2c-edc4-11ed-9...
 (HTM)    [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Flight_Test_Museum#C...
       
        fred_is_fred wrote 20 hours 44 min ago:
        If anyone is near Cheyenne Wyoming or passing through on I-25, I highly
        enjoyed visiting Quebec-01 State Park. Former silo left intact where
        you can tour. I think you need a reservation: [1] Then go back and
        watch the first 15 minutes of Wargames. They did a great job.
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/places-to-go/quebec-01
       
        swozey wrote 20 hours 48 min ago:
        What's inside of the locked down door? Is that just the main door in?
        I'm assuming that hallway is the museum.
        
        And what is on the map with the circles? Is that a geographical map or
        some sort of system map?
        
        And what shock do the Shock Isolators stop? Shock from a launch?
       
          jabits wrote 12 hours 17 min ago:
          In answer to your first question, in the field that would be the
          primary blast door, a penetration that went through the capsule to a
          chamber with another larger blast door out to the elevator. At the
          other end of this chamber is the passage to the generator room. We
          were obviously equipped to go quite some time “off-grid”.
          
          I am assuming the view is from one of the training simulators which
          are used exact, suspended control centers with a viewing window.
          
          We had no maps in the capsule. Any targeting we did was normal 3-d
          coordinates, technically we really did not have a “need to know”
          where the coordinates were located.
       
            swozey wrote 4 hours 19 min ago:
            Thanks! If you look to the left, from the hallway, then go to the
            very left corner and look right there's a paper map on the wall
            with circles all over it. Was curious what that was. In my absolute
            ignorance it looks like one of those "nukes will explode this far"
            sort of maps but I can't tell if it's actually a map of land or a
            system design thing.
       
          jabits wrote 19 hours 25 min ago:
          The launch center you see is a square box about the size of an RV
          suspended by four large “shock absorbers” inside a hardened
          capsule with walls about six feet thick. The shock absorbers are so
          the launch center can sway in the event of a NuDet (nuclear
          detonation) near by. Unlike the older Titans, the Minuteman missiles
          were nowhere near the capsules, being a minimum of three miles away.
          Each capsule had direct command and control of 10 Minuteman missiles
          distributed in a spoke like fashion around the hub (capsule). The
          Titans crew was right with their massively larger missiles.
          
          I was a Launch Control Officer for five years in the mid-80s out of
          FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne WY. My squadron was the 320th Strategic
          Missile Squadron with all 5 capsules and 50 missiles were physically
          in western NE, with the furthest over 100 miles away in Sidney NE. I
          spent 335 days underground over the 5 year period.
       
            swozey wrote 15 hours 31 min ago:
            Awesome info, thank you! 335 days underground.. Similar to Nukes in
            the Navy!
       
        themagician wrote 21 hours 7 min ago:
        Whenever I see things like this I think it's so cool, but it's always
        followed by this weird feeling that lasts a few hours where all I can
        think about is, "What have we done?" Why does destruction come to easy
        to us? Why has it always been a prioirty?
       
          eternauta3k wrote 19 hours 20 min ago:
          Coordination is hard?
       
          jrockway wrote 20 hours 35 min ago:
          Being able to destroy everyone else is what prevents them from
          destroying us.
          
          Something I think about and feel bad about is the "nuclear sponge". 
          Why do we have a bunch of ICBMs in the midwest?  So that if someone
          wants to nuke NYC, they have to nuke the Great Plains first, or face
          total destruction.  Makes nuclear war that much more expensive.  Of
          course, it's kind of an outdated assumption that that alone would be
          enough; we still have bombers and submarine-launched missiles.
          
          I have mixed feelings about mutually assured destruction; it would be
          nice if the human race couldn't destroy the entire planet.  But, it
          does make sense on some level.    Why don't you go up to lions in the
          zoo and pet them?  I bet they're soft!    The reason you don't is
          because you know it will bite your arm off.  We hope the same logic
          applies to nuclear first strikes.  (I also feel a little bad knowing
          that my country is the only one that ever used nuclear weapons.  The
          world didn't end, but that's little consolation for the 200,000
          civilians we vaporized in an instant.)
       
            pyuser583 wrote 19 hours 34 min ago:
            The longer MAD works, the better I feel about it. We're at 77 of
            nuclear peace thanks to MAD. That's a pretty good record.
       
              _DeadFred_ wrote 16 hours 33 min ago:
              On the flip side, it's pretty hard for human systems to keep a
              nine nines success rate forever.
       
                pyuser583 wrote 15 hours 27 min ago:
                What’s the numerator and what’s the denominator?
                
                Numerator is nuclear wars? Nuclear bombs dropped? People killed
                by nuclear bombs? Years with a nuclear bomb dropped?
                
                Denominator is total wars? Number of bombs dropped? People
                killed in war? Years passed?
                
                By some numerators and denominators, we’re well into
                99.99999x territory.
       
            xanderlewis wrote 19 hours 52 min ago:
            > that's little consolation for the 200,000 civilians we vaporized
            in an instant.
            
            And they’re the lucky ones.
       
              _DeadFred_ wrote 16 hours 20 min ago:
              My grandpa was there as a Marine as soon as the armistice was
              over (he went from the horror of burning out japanese from
              tunnels with flamethrowers to that). He didn't talk about it
              much, but he sure hated Reagan and Reagan's love for nukes. By
              the time I was around his hips had melted away and had to be
              replaced. I have the Rossarie he carried there. I'm not really
              religious, but I figure if it could get him through a post
              nuclear attacked city it can be my lucky talisman as well.
              
              People make fun of the fifties 'just make it look like everyone
              was happy' mindset, but can you blame these people? He was a
              young Iowa farm boy. He grew up riding his horse to school, no
              cars. Then off to be a Marine in the Pacific (because he and
              everyone from his town was too recent of German descent to be
              trusted to go to Europe, plus the town had a German language
              newspaper before the war, which of course, by the end, no trace
              of being German was left. Only red blooded American English
              speakers) who saw the effects of nuclear war. Dude just wanted to
              drink a beer and listen to polka music on Laurence Welk.
       
            the_snooze wrote 20 hours 2 min ago:
            MAD makes sense if you assume the participants are rational and
            have accurate information. That's probably true on average in the
            long-run. But what bothers me is that it only takes one accident or
            miscalculation or crazy president to bring about the end of the
            world. And we've certainly had our fair share of close calls with
            bad sensor readings or training tapes being put into a live
            operational setting.
       
              jrockway wrote 18 hours 4 min ago:
              Yeah, I think MAD and "launch on warning" are distinct concepts. 
              If we survive the first strike, we can rationally plan our second
              strike.  So training tapes being played on the live system won't
              cause us to accidentally make a first strike; we can still assure
              destruction after taking a first strike.  (That's why there's the
              nuclear triad.)
              
              I think that "launch on warning" was an official policy at some
              point.    I am not sure if it is anymore.  I don't think it's a
              good one and it's not necessary to deter a first strike.  The
              missiles are underground and at unknown locations in the ocean
              for that reason.
              
              As for crazy presidents, yup, that is a legitimate concern.  I am
              not sure why we put commanding the armed forces into the hands of
              one person.  (The advantage is that one person can decisively
              retaliate after a surprise strike on Washington.  The
              disadvantage is that a drunk Twitter war can escalate to ending
              the world.  Sigh!)
              
              As for irrational actors, that's another big problem.  What does
              North Korea lose if they nuke the US?  Not much; they don't have
              a huge economy as it is.  It's a nice "fuck you" if the reigning
              dictator sees that the end of their regime is inevitable.  MAD
              doesn't help with that at all.
              
              It's all actually pretty scary.  We like to think that the cold
              war is over, but really, not all the countries of the world are
              at peace right now, so everything could be over in the blink of
              the eye and you won't see it coming.  I guess keep all that in
              mind as you plan your day!
       
                Log_out_ wrote 7 hours 53 min ago:
                Good argument for a defection retirement program to offer by
                the west. We bring your family to safety and grant your
                retirement in style, so you do not get MAD. Let's negotiate
                with terrorism quitters.
       
                  1992spacemovie wrote 51 min ago:
                  We already negotiate with terrorist via AGM-114s. Why would
                  we want to do what you suggest?
       
            NegativeLatency wrote 20 hours 15 min ago:
            I think I'd prefer to go instantly in a moment via nuke than say
            burn to death in one of the many firebombing raids the US did on
            Japan during WWII: [1] > More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000
            Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were
            left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in
            human history.
            
 (HTM)      [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1...
       
              ipdashc wrote 18 hours 58 min ago:
              I know you didn't mean it literally, but it's still worth saying:
              They did not "go instantly in a moment". A few, sure. I'd assume
              most of them probably still burned to death, or were buried under
              rubble, or bled out after being cut by debris, or starved to
              death after being blinded.
              
              Firebombing is bad, but nukes are also really bad, there's no
              need to treat them as if they're merciful.
       
                VoidWhisperer wrote 16 hours 35 min ago:
                Not to mention the further many, many people that died in
                excruciatingly awful ways from the radiation
       
            redmajor12 wrote 20 hours 18 min ago:
            I dont think "nuclear sponge" is a real concept that dates to the
            Cold War. Can you provide a reference? In a quick search, I just
            found poorly written and recent articles that just link to each
            other.
            
            Rather, the silo fields were dispersed to get out of range of sub
            launched missiles or soviet ICBMs that would go over the N pole,
            which is why some of them are very close to the Mexican border in
            NM (like the Titan IIs around Roswell). Of course, potential modern
            Russian ICBMs that have the range to go over the South Pole negate
            this defense and also any midrange ABM interception possibilities.
            
            I also suspect that silo locations were an early example of
            Congressional pork. Or, just located next to exiting SAC bases for
            logistical reasons, like Beale AFB in northern California.
       
              redmajor12 wrote 20 hours 11 min ago:
              Never mind. This is from 1978 with respect to the MX program
              (although this is quite late in ICBM deployment history and I
              think more of a specific problem for the MX- the "Peacekeeper"
              was supposed to be so accurate that it was reasoned that the
              Soviets would see it as a first strike weapon against their
              missile  fields, making any potential US deployment necessitate
              an immediate soviet response. Hence crazy basing ideas like a
              network of underground trains carrying the missiles.)
              
 (HTM)        [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/07/...
       
        captainkrtek wrote 21 hours 22 min ago:
        This video shows a bit more in action step by step:
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://youtu.be/HWZXinRwCaE?feature=shared
       
          tshtf wrote 19 hours 19 min ago:
          I watched this one recently, and was going to share it here. I'm not
          in the field, but this looks like a nice demo of the current launch
          systems UX, unlike the tens  that are dated to the early 80s.
       
          neilv wrote 21 hours 6 min ago:
          That looks like a much later system.
          
          I'm surprised that "pop-up menu" was a part of this particular
          interaction scenario.  But much of the rest of the UI looks more like
          what I would've guessed.
       
            arrakeenrevived wrote 20 hours 46 min ago:
            Yes, that video looks to be the "REACT" [0] upgrade that was done
            in the 1990s. It specifically says it changed it to make the
            operators sit side-by-side.
            
            0:
            
 (HTM)      [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Execution_and_Combat_T...
       
        ChrisMarshallNY wrote 21 hours 23 min ago:
        The pink bunny slipper in the military satchel does it for me.
       
        jf wrote 21 hours 47 min ago:
        If you ever happen to be in Arizona, I highly recommend that you visit
        the Titan Missile Museum: [1] The site has been carefully maintained
        and the tour brings you up close to places that only a select few were
        able to see when they were in operation.
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://titanmissilemuseum.org/
       
          mjmsmith wrote 16 hours 22 min ago:
          Yes! Really interesting, and the guides are excellent. (Think they
          missed an opportunity to call it MoMAD though.)
       
          neverartful wrote 21 hours 15 min ago:
          Agreed! I just visited just over a week ago for the first time. It's
          very interesting to see it firsthand and hear about how it all
          worked. At the same time, it was very sobering and frightening to
          think about what would happen if these things were used in anger.
       
        DrNosferatu wrote 21 hours 56 min ago:
        Where are the giant floppy disks?
       
          Animats wrote 20 hours 16 min ago:
          There are no computers in that 1960s launch control center. It's all
          hard-wired.
       
        neilv wrote 22 hours 38 min ago:
        It made for a great movie opening ("Wargames", 1983): [1] (Don't worry;
        that guy went on to be White House Chief of Staff.)
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6aCpS0-yls
       
          imglorp wrote 20 hours 46 min ago:
          After a goose chase to confirm, it was John Spencer playing in The
          West Wing. Not an actual CoS...
       
          dylan604 wrote 21 hours 6 min ago:
          And the other guy went to cut off someone's ear.
       
          rtkwe wrote 21 hours 36 min ago:
          TURN YOUR KEY CAPTAIN! Love Wargames for all it's goofy hacker
          nonsense.
       
        neilv wrote 22 hours 44 min ago:
        Easter egg hunt: MIL-STD pink slippers, for wearing around the doomsday
        activation room.
       
        ck2 wrote 22 hours 50 min ago:
        I sure hope they are testing the people better now. [1] [2] [3] Also
        the missiles themselves are failing testing: [4] [5] Why again do we
        have thousands upon thousands of these things when less than 100 would
        do? We are going to accidentally nuke ourselves sooner or later.
        
 (HTM)  [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/13/us-air-force-mis...
 (HTM)  [2]: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Professionalism/Cheating_Scandal...
 (HTM)  [3]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/high-marks-cooks-lifted-ov...
 (HTM)  [4]: https://www.airandspaceforces.com/icbm-test-failure-nuclear-mo...
 (HTM)  [5]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68355395
       
          ucarion wrote 22 hours 34 min ago:
          The US has 400 land-based nuclear weapons, not thousands upon
          thousands. They're there to be a better thing for our enemies to aim
          at than our cities.
       
            jp191919 wrote 19 hours 33 min ago:
            Not a launch site, but the largest stockpile of deployed nukes in
            the world is in a heavily populated area near seattle.
            
 (HTM)      [1]: https://truthout.org/articles/puget-sound-is-home-to-the-b...
       
            saganus wrote 22 hours 18 min ago:
            According to this [0] the number of warheads as of 2020 is 3750
            which does kind of qualify as "thousands upon thousands".
            
            Edit: I don't think it matters if "only" 400 are land-based, does
            it? it's still "thousands".
            
            [0]
            
 (HTM)      [1]: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fact-Shee...
       
              knorker wrote 21 hours 39 min ago:
              There's MIRV, so depends what you mean by "these things".
              
              But also some among these 3750 are in subs, and bombers.
              
              And as for "100 would do": Well, if they all hit their targets,
              maybe. But part of the reason for overkill is so that even a
              sneak attack that's 90% successful should trigger MAD. Well, I
              say "should", but more like that's the cold logical deterrence
              rationale.
       
            tylerflick wrote 22 hours 21 min ago:
            Exactly. If anyone is curious, look up the term Nuclear Sponge.
       
              somenameforme wrote 20 hours 49 min ago:
              Nobody's going to be aiming at nuclear silos in the middle of
              nowhere that are not only designed to withstand a nuclear attack,
              but may well have also launched by the time your missile arrives.
              US early Cold War targets have been declassified. [1] We did make
              efforts to target airfields where nukes would have launched from
              (prior to the ICBM), but those were valuable and weakly defended
              targets, regardless of whether the enemy's ships were already
              airborne or not. But a large chunk of our missiles were directed
              towards agriculture, industry, medicine product, and a large
              number of targets were justified as simply "population." The
              Soviet targets likely would have been more or less identical.
              
              In nuclear war the goal will not be to eliminate the enemy's
              military - military's can be rebuilt. At the point of nuclear war
              absolutely all norms and rules of conflict will have been
              discarded. The goal is going to be to eliminate the enemy's
              entire country, such that he might never be a threat again. In
              such a situation I'd feel far safer standing near a nuclear
              bunker out in the middle of nowhere than I would in the middle of
              a high population, high economic value urban area. [1] -
              
 (HTM)        [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-...
       
        bragr wrote 23 hours 5 min ago:
        I can help but think the missileers would be less depressed (it's a
        known problem) if some more attention was paid to aesthetics and
        comfort, given the amount of time they spent locked in there.
       
          chihuahua wrote 19 hours 38 min ago:
          I don't know if there's a worse peacetime job in the military than
          sitting in a missile silo every day. At least for me, it seems
          absolutely dreadful, sitting there all day every day.
       
            jabits wrote 18 hours 37 min ago:
            Indeed it can be. There was a lot of action in the O club in
            one’s off days. We oftentimes thought however that these a-launch
            crews probably had it worse, except at least it would be more quiet
            without all the active comm systems. And since we were always
            “alert” we took part in many, many global military exercises…
       
          arrakeenrevived wrote 20 hours 44 min ago:
          I'm not going to claim that it's much better these days, but it's
          worth noting that the launch center in the link is quite old. The
          launch center have had multiple upgrades since then; the link here
          [0] shows some videos from inside a newer configuration, which does
          look a little bit more comfortable, and even that video is from the
          early 2000s. I would have to guess that more upgrades have been made
          since then.
          
          0:
          
 (HTM)    [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40289005
       
          iancmceachern wrote 22 hours 59 min ago:
          The chairs look comfy, better than standard government issue, and
          they're on tracks so you don't have to get up to check on the
          equipment.
       
            jabits wrote 17 hours 2 min ago:
            Actually the chairs were pretty comfortable. They were locked down
            to survive (in theory) the shaking resulting from nudets. The
            deputy launch commander’s was on a long track so he could slide
            back and forth to gather the redundant messages and reset alarms.
            The commander sat facing the missile light board.
       
        aamoyg wrote 23 hours 5 min ago:
        The one in Arizona was better and even more better with the top to
        bottom tour before it flooded.
       
          jf wrote 21 hours 46 min ago:
          Did it flood recently? I was there only a few months ago. I also
          checked the site and it looks like they are still giving tours?
       
            aamoyg wrote 19 hours 50 min ago:
            They used to give tours that went to all levels of the silo (there
            are like 20+ levels) but the bottoms of the silos flood unless you
            run diesel pumps a lot. They said it was unlikely they would offer
            them again. Also Patrick Stewart touched the missile with his bare
            hands and fucked it up in his arrogance despite being told multiple
            times not to, apparently (the oils in your hand are corrosive to
            the alloy used for it).
       
              fblp wrote 8 hours 52 min ago:
              What's the story with Patrick Stewart touching the missile?
              Couldn't find anything about it on Google.
       
       
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