![]() This is the little known, last remaining Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) subterranean launch silo at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona, about 23 miles south of Tucson. intercontinental ballistic could annihilate Soviet targets on the way to mutually assured destruction is one of the most remarkable paradoxes you will ever experience. The paradox of her comforting, motherly manner with the narration of how the largest ever U.S. would unleash nuclear Armageddon in response to a first strike from the former Soviet Union. She speaks with a lilting southern drawl as she describes how the U.S. A great sense of humor, wears a neatly turned out cardigan. ![]() Miss Christel Widera may be the sweetest grandmother you’ve ever met. (All images: Tom Demerly/) Arizona’s Remote Titan Missile Museum is a Rare Gem of Cold War History. The rocket was moved on to help in the European project with France and Germany.īlue Streak was to be the first stage of the new joint European assault on space exploration and the lucrative satellite business.īut although Blue Streak was a great success, the French and German stages proved too unreliable and the programme was dropped.From the surface there is little to suggest that an underground Titan II ICBM complex had the power to start the destruction of civilization as we know it. The Blue Streak was also a casualty of the British Treasury, which was looking to save money. If they had been adopted here and the Blue Streak programme had gone ahead, about 60 rocket silos would have been built on the East coast.īut the development and cost of the rocket and the silos proved too prohibitive and eventually Britain moved on to the Polaris nuclear deterrent. The first attempt to build a silo was here in Britain. Not many people will realise that the great rocket silos in the US were a British idea. This meant coming up with new ideas and British ingenuity once again came to the fore – with rocket silos. It is claimed Blue Streak had a 100% success in test launching, but because the Blue Streak would need a 30-minute preparation time for launch and only a four-minute warning was available, it left them very vulnerable. It was developed at Spadeadam, in Cumbria, a remote site where Britain’s top scientists came together. We relied on our V bomber force to deliver the weapon, but we also tried to develop a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Russia. In the 1950s and 1960s, Britain was one of only four countries capable of waging nuclear war, France being the fourth. It was little realised that back in the early Cold War days of the 1950s, decisions at Cabinet level could have elevated the North East to a main target for a pre-emptive Russian nuclear strike.Īs the North Korean rocket sped skywards a fortnight ago, there were rumblings around the world as if we were heading back into those dark days of nuclear confrontation between the East and West.Īlthough the North Koreans said their rocket was exploration, the US and everyone else thought differently. They had just discovered the abandoned remains of excavations for a 1960s British missile silo. IN 2004, a team of tree-fellers in Cumbria stumbled across a site littered with concrete slabs and earthworks.
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