The actual silo is sealed in with glass because it's contaminated with rocket fuel. You can look into the silo from various levels but you can't enter. Apparently one drop of the fuel they used will penetrate your flesh and start destroying bone. They have photos of the Air Force guys in their "Rocket Fuel Handler's Outfit".
Normally I'm a big fan of Matt Blaze. But it kind of pisses me off that he implies that the museum needs to be justified on some liberal-arts, big picture basis:
It's worth asking whether displaying this terrible artifact of our 40 years
on the edge of oblivion for all to see really makes good sense.
I hate this crap. First of all, we are still just as much "on the edge of oblivion". Russia and now China have plenty of nukes pointed at us. We just don't talk about it as much.
Second, I don't consider it a "terrible artifact". It's an awesome engineering project. And it helped preserve the freedoms we have today.
Third, and most importantly, I don't give a fuck if there's some point or purpose to the place, or if it makes anyone contemplate anything. I'm an engineer and a hacker; as a teenager I dreamed of getting into one of these silos; I appreciate the effort that went into building this amazing thing, and I'm very grateful to the people who have preserved it.
To me, each airman who served here, and each volunteer who helps with the museum is worth 1000 of Barbara Kingsolver and her kind.
It's just a lead-in to the comments by Barbara Kingsolver. He knows that it's not 'over.' See later on:
> But more importantly, a few hundred of the successors to the
> Titans, the "Minuteman III" missiles, remain active in silos
> throughout the northern US, run by crews and following procedures
> essentially similar to those here. ICBMs are not yet history,
> even if the original motivation for building them now is.
> Second, I don't consider it a "terrible artifact". It's an awesome engineering project. And it helped preserve the freedoms we have today.
We arguably wouldn't have a lot of the advances we have today without WW2, but I'm not ready to shake Hitler's hand and congratulate him on a job well done. Just because something causes a good outcome doesn't mean that referring to it as 'terrible' is the opposite of the truth.
If some 'mad scientist' starts kidnapping homeless people off the streets and torturing them to death in his/her basement. Suppose through this process he/she discovers a cure for cancer. I'm not about to say that he/she "led the heroic fight to free us from the evils of cancer." But I'm not about to throw out the results (cure for cancer) either just because the method (torturing people to death) was misguided.
It's an awesome engineering project whose purpose is to kill tens of millions of people. This stuff has been technical catnip to several generations of scientists and engineers, but I think it's perfectly legitimate to step back and consider the moral element, even in a geeky article.
> It's an awesome engineering project whose purpose is to kill tens of millions of people.
And your alternative is ....
> This stuff has been technical catnip to several generations of scientists and engineers, but I think it's perfectly legitimate to step back and consider the moral element
Yes, let's consider the moral element. You clearly think that this was wrong, so what was correct?
Note that these weapons worked exactly as intended. They were never used. Your alternative has to do at least as well.
The actual silo is sealed in with glass because it's contaminated with rocket fuel. You can look into the silo from various levels but you can't enter. Apparently one drop of the fuel they used will penetrate your flesh and start destroying bone. They have photos of the Air Force guys in their "Rocket Fuel Handler's Outfit".
Normally I'm a big fan of Matt Blaze. But it kind of pisses me off that he implies that the museum needs to be justified on some liberal-arts, big picture basis:
I hate this crap. First of all, we are still just as much "on the edge of oblivion". Russia and now China have plenty of nukes pointed at us. We just don't talk about it as much.Second, I don't consider it a "terrible artifact". It's an awesome engineering project. And it helped preserve the freedoms we have today.
Third, and most importantly, I don't give a fuck if there's some point or purpose to the place, or if it makes anyone contemplate anything. I'm an engineer and a hacker; as a teenager I dreamed of getting into one of these silos; I appreciate the effort that went into building this amazing thing, and I'm very grateful to the people who have preserved it.
To me, each airman who served here, and each volunteer who helps with the museum is worth 1000 of Barbara Kingsolver and her kind.