ronald reagan minuteman missile site
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ronald reagan minuteman missile site印象
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Sites like this one dotted the northern prairies of the U.S. during the Cold War, yet most of us went about our lives with no knowledge of them. A visit here is a fascinating look into a nuclear missile command site, those who manned it, and all that it entailed. The tour includes the above-ground living and security facilities and the below-ground maintenance and launch-control facilities. Everything is as it was on the last day the site was manned. Such an important piece of our military history is something we all should visit. It is definitely worth the drive beyond the well-traveled Interstate to experience. Your tour begins with a very informative video. There is a small gift shop.This site is run by the North Dakota state tourism department. They are incredibly accommodating to those wanting tours of the facility. We arrived after 5 p.m. fearing that we may have missed the last tour. Not only was the site open until 6:00 in summer, but they simply offer a tour whenever you show up! We had a tour for 2. And our tourguide told us about several very large groups they had taken through earlier that day.
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This is really something to see, from the top where it is ground level to the bottom where they lived behind big cement and steel doors that way many many tons. See their living, eating, and recreation areas up top then take the elevator down and see where they sat in case they had to launch the missiles.Great experience and many things left there to this day just the way they left it when they walked out for the last time!
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I planned for months for a massive road trip to the Great Plains and Upper Midwest. What started as a trip to visit with my dad in Milwaukee, Wisconsin turned into an obsession to see any and everything related to my existence during the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan's finger just inches from destroying the world. My viewing of "Ther Day After" on its premier showing in 1983 gave me nightmares. The trip to the upper Plains, to the prairties of North Dakota, to the tiny hamlet of Cooperstown, brought me face to face with the very instruments with which I would have met certain death. The Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Historic Site, a well-preserved Missile Launch Facility near Cooperstown, North Dakota (TRULY legendary!), was the very manifestation of my fears. After doing fervent research, watching all nuclear war related movies on YouTube (including TDA, First Strike, Threads, War Games, The War Game (trhe British documentary), and other items, I planned this side trip to Cooperstown. After an overnight stay at Knob Noster, Missouri (next to Whiteman AFB, mentioned in TDA) and seeing and visiting places mentioned in the movie, I ventured another 780+ miles north, and 600 miles west of my dad, to see this place. I stayed at the pleasant and comfortable Coachman Inn in downtown Cooperstown while the good folks over at V-W Motors looked at my little truck, which was protesting during this portion of the trip by wanting to run warm. I trook a beautiful Tuesday summer morning to take my time and tour this MLF. Upon my arrival at Oscar Zero, I was warmly greeted by Matt and Nathaniel. After viewing the twenty minute video (which I watched with interest many times on their Facebook), I, along with a small group of middle school students went on our tour of the facility. The kiddos, as well as I, were fascinated with learning how the Air Force personnel enjoyed a comfortable life on the topside of the facility, complete with great m,eals and recreation. And then it was time to go fifty feet below. Needless to say, I was humbled, if not a bit scared, to go down into the control bunker to see just where and how WWIII would have started. Not with the push of a button, but with the turn of two separate keys, and world destruction was assured. I enjoyed my tour guide, Nathaniel, along with Matt (both of whom many reviewers here have mentioned), and both young gentlemen are certainly knowledgeable in the workings and daily operations of this facility. I was most impressed with learning the exacting and precise steps (too numerous to comprehend) of what exactily it would have taken to launch a weapon of mass destruction...proper coded order from the POTUS, numerous failsafe steps, and the precise timing of the turning of the two keys at the exact same time to fully commit the missiles and send them to the former Soviet Union to destroy them, as they would most certainly have done to us. Standing on the multiton concrete blast door at November-33 was certainly one of the most sobering experiences of my life. Knowing what kind of power those missiles had and what it took to launch them, plus the extraordinary measures of both US and Soviet diplomats to keep the peace...WOW...just incredible. All within the inconspicuous confines of the Great Northern Plains. All of that farmland hiding, in plain sight, these WMDs...As a child of the 80s, I cannot imagine how it was like to live during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have spoken to lots of people who have endured that thirteen days of near destruction. From the Kennedy-Kruschev era to the Reagan-Gorbachev times until today, with threats overseas renewing once again the possibility of worldwide Armageddon, we are reminded of the terrible consequences that mankind can inflict with the use of a weapon that employs the smallest of all matter: the atom. Should humans ever decide to use these terrible weapons, I for one do not wish to remain to see the effects. I wish to perish in the millisecond of the bright flash and the terrible blast of atomic horro.And thanks to Oscar Zero, November-33, and Cooperstown, I hope that moment never comes.Is it worth your time and fuel? In my opinion, if you value the human existence, yes.
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This place is great. A continuation of North Dakota's military fort stories, instead of guarding settlers against Indian attack, it was helping guard against nuclear attack during the Cold War. You get to tour the living quarters of the soldiers who lived at the site as well as go down 60 feet under ground to see the command facility that had control of 10 minute man III missiles. It is like the place is stopped in time, 1997, when the last crew left having completed their mission. It is worth seeing!
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Not much I can add to all the previous reviews except to say it is well worth the time to venture off Interstate 90 to visit. It a sobering reminder of how simple the end of mankind can happen with the turn of a key and a push of a few buttons. But, there are still plenty of active missile sites still out there.
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This museum does a great job of preserving and interpreting the history of the Minuteman missile system and the crews that manned the sites during the Cold War. Oscar-Zero is the code-name of this gated Missile Alert Facility (MAF) about 4 miles north of Cooperstown. Of the original 5 MAFs of the squadron located in this area of N. Dakota, Oscar-Zero is the only one remaining intact. It was originally built in the mid 1960's and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Everything was kept exactly as it was before this site was decommissioned in the 1990s. The above ground Oscar-Zero building housed an 8 person security and maintenance team. 60 feet below this building are two steel reinforced concrete complexes that contain the equipment for monitoring and launching 10 missiles, the life support equipment and accomodations for two officers to be self sufficient over prolonged periods. November-33 is an underground Launch Facility (LF) missile site similar to the 10 LF missile sites Oscar-Zero controlled and is located about 2 miles east of Cooperstown. After Nov-33 was decommissioned, the Minuteman II missile was removed and the silo filled in, but the blast door that covered the missile, security fence, surveillance system, etc remain for self-guided tours. Our Oscar-Zero tour guide, Matt was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the MAF and the various personnel that worked there. We first toured the above ground control center and the living-areas (kitchen, livingroom, recroom, bedrooms, etc) where the facility managers, security forces, chef and maintenance teams lived day and night. You then take an elevator shaft down to the below ground Launch Control Center (LCC). Massive concrete/steel blast doors that protected the LCC had to be manually opened for crew changes. All the original computers and guidance equipment that would have been used to launch nuclear missles is on display. Matt had many interesting stories relayed to him by former crew members who have come back to visit the museum and start telling stories about when they worked there.
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Being a military veteran of the Cold War, touring this facility was a step back into time. The facility, which is preserved as it was when the Air Force vacated it in 1997, still possesses the period look and smell.Our young tour guide was enthusiastic and overall well-versed in the history and operation of the facility, but was unfamiliar with some historical and operational aspects.I highly encourage anyone who does not remember the Cold War to tour this facility.
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We toured both the Oscar-Zero launch complex and the November-33 silo. Oscar-Zero is about 4 miles north of Cooperstown. November-33 is located about 2.75 miles east of Cooperstown.Admission fee was $10 per adult, $3 per child, and free for kids under 5 years old for Oscar-Zero. The tour lasts about 1 hour, starting above ground with a video on the history of the cold war. The above ground tour covers operations of the security forces, while the below ground portion explains the roles of the missileers. The highlight of the tour for us was the underground portion.The Oscar-Zero facility is just the way the crews left it the day it was decommissioned.The November-33 site is the way it originally looked above ground. You are unable to tour the silo itself as they have filled the silo with sand, but you can walk around the grounds and stand on top of the solo hatch.
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To get to his site, you have to get off the interstate and venture into rural North Dakota on two-lane roads. The tour was very informative and my kids (ages 11,9, and 6) learned a lot.
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I have to admit: the whole concept of M.A.D. - Mutually Assured Destruction - is just a mind-bend for me. I mean, how close have we come to nuclear holocaust?A trip to the RR Minuteman Missile Silo, which the ND Historical Society had the foresight to work to preserve, cements the reality and absurdity of the nuclear age. Out on the prairie a few miles north of Cooperstown, the site just looks like a small utility building; unremarkable. Inside, however, one walks into the absurd world of the missileer....The tour starts with a film bringing us back to the origins of the nuclear age, and takes us to the oh-too-close time period in which the START treaty led the closure of some of the missile launch sites. Our guide, Nathaniel, a student and worker with the ND Historical Society, was wonderful. He was very accommodating to my elderly mother and our many questions, very knowledgeable about the site, and quite fun to chat with.A few miles away, a preserved missile site that was once powered by the Oscar-Zero launch complex is also available to view; again, a shockingly absurd contradiction to the ND prairie!