Year: 2014

Having spent a month studying nuclear deterrence and weapon effects I thought it would be appropriate to get some first-hand experience with the Cold War ICBM world.  When we finished playing at White Sands National Monument it was too late, but the next day we drove back out to the White Sands Missile Range where you can see the “Missile Park” and the WSMR Musem.

Then it was back in the car to drive to Tucson, AZ.  We spent the night in Tucson before visiting a real (decommissioned) ICBM silo in nearby Sahuarita, AZ.  The “Copper Penny” Titan II Silo was turned into a museum with the missile still intact (warhead removed, of course, and presumably unfueled as the fuel was nasty, dangerous stuff).  I thought it was pretty neat.  Too bad we didn’t have more time (or mainly Heather wouldn’t have put up with it) to do the longer tour where you get to go through the whole thing top to bottom.  But we were able to get on the short tour where you see the control room and the silo itself.  They run a pretend launch sequence with the 2 keys and the code book.  I found it interesting, Jess and Heather…somewhat less so.

I spent a month studying the strategies and theories behind how nuclear weapons might be used and what would be targeted with them.  The Titan II carried a W-53 9-megaton nuclear warhead.  An airbust would result in a fireball with a radius of ~1.45 miles.  Most homes would collapse out to a radius of ~10.3 miles.  And exposed persons would experience 3rd degree burns within a radius of ~19.5 miles.  If you detonated one above NYC you’d kill about 4 million people instantly and injure another 5 million.  Over Tokyo would be over 5 million deaths with another 10 million injuries.  These were not surgical weapons.  [Calculations from NukeMap]

Being in the bunker and knowing that the launch of that missile would have meant the immediate death of a few million people and the inevitable death of hundreds of millions (as presumably an all-out nuclear war would be occurring) was sobering.  And the great joke of nuclear deterrence is that no one knows if it works or not.  We only have post hoc reasoning, some logical inferences, and hope.  During the Cold War the Soviets were convinced the U.S. was just waiting for a chance to wipe them out.  The U.S. was convinced the Soviets were just waiting for a chance to wipe us out.  It’s amazing we all survived.

I was able to buy a souvenir from the museum.  It’s a piece of the re-entry assembly from a Titan II.  When the missiles were decommissioned someone got their hands on some of them and cut out these squares from spacer made from an aluminum-copper alloy.  Not everyone gets to own a piece of an ICBM. [Last photo in gallery below.]

After Carlsbad Caverns we headed off to White Sands National Monument.  When planning the trip I wondered whether it would be worth it to stop off to see some sand, but it wasn’t too far out of our way and it was worth it.

We arrived in the evening and I expected the air to be hot and the sand to be hot from sitting in the sun all day.  But it wasn’t.  The sand was amazingly cool, not like sand at the beach for whatever reason.  The sun was on its way down and mostly behind clouds and there was a nice breeze so instead of being unbearably hot it was almost pleasant.

Heather thought it was the most amazing thing ever.  When it was finally time to leave she decided to just take off into the dunes instead.  There’s nothing dangerous around so I just followed behind her waiting for her to get tired out which she eventually did after running up and down a couple of dunes.  You can buy sleds from the gift store, but since we didn’t know what it would really be like out on the sand we didn’t buy one.  However, a family that stopped at the same place as us let us borrow one of theirs for a little bit.  It didn’t work out very well, but it’s the closest thing to sledding Heather’s ever done anyway.

We discovered a fun game of taking some of the more solid chunks of sand and hurling them way up in the air and then watching them land.  When they land they make a very satisfying thud, but explode into plain sand.  So it just disappears back into the all the other sand.  It was fun.  Heather got into pretty quickly, so here’s a video:

If you’re in the area it’s worth a stop.  You’d think that a whole area covered in sand would be pretty dead, but there’s actually a fair amount of life going on.  I managed to spot a few of the white lizards that live in the sand.  There are plants that rapidly grow as a dune moves over then, but then when the dune passes they collapse down in a heap.  And there are other plants that hold a column of solidified sand underneath themselves when the dune passes by them.

Once we finished up at White Sands we headed into Las Cruces, NM to stay the night.

We left Texas on the 29th and headed for Carlsbad, NM.  We got into town and checked into our hotel, found some dinner, and went to bed.  Then it was up the next morning and off to Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  Carlsbad isn’t much of a town and probably only really exists because of the caverns.  But people don’t take family vacations by driving like they used to and it seems to really be hurting the area.  The parking lot was no more than one-third full which led me to ask an employee when their busy season was.  They replied that it was the busy season.

At least in one way it’s a good thing they’re not busier.  The staff running the cafeteria were certainly not interested in speedy service.  It honestly took them 10-15 minutes per customer to serve up mainly already-prepared food.  So the line only had about 4 people in it, but you didn’t expect to be standing there for an hour before being served.  Regardless, the caverns themselves were pretty interesting.  We took the elevator down to the main cavern (rather than walking down which Jess’ knees were not going to cooperate with).  Heather was a bit concerned with the whole thing, but eventually calmed down and enjoyed herself.

I was surprised with how quiet it was.  I expected there to be a lot of echoing such that you could hear people all the time, but that’s not the case.  The rocks are apparently of a material that absorbs a lot of sound.  That combined with how few people were around meant that at times we’d be standing by ourselves in near silence, deep underground with minimal lights.

Once we finished up in the caverns we loaded back up in the car and headed off to White Sands National Monument.