Photography

0 readers

58 users here now

All things photography. Share your own original photos, your questions, your inspiration.

Rules

Share your own original photography. No NSFW images. Be Nice.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Titan II ICBM, Lauch Complex 571-7, Sahuarita, AZ, 2009. (fedia.io)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Titan II ICBM, Lauch Complex 571-7, Sahuarita, AZ, 2009.

All the pixels, none of the retaliatory strikes, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4182507708

#photography

top 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Captured with a DSLR and a Zeiss 21mm Distagon lens. Handheld (there was no room to set up a tripod).

In 2009, I was fortunate to join a "top to bottom" tour of former Air Force Titan ICBM site 571-7, now preserved as a museum. Titan II missiles carried a nine megaton(!) "physics package" in the "reentry vehicle" (which they emphatically assured me had been removed from this missile, but I still wouldn't advise upsetting them too much).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (2 children)

More ICBM photos and discussion here: https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/titans/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] Have you ever been to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota? HIGHLY recommended.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

@[email protected] Yes, definitely a mandatory stop on the nuclear tourism route!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] Yowzer. I've read about that before but it's usually just facts & figures about the distances, blast radius, expected casualties etc. Your piece adds the humanity that was present at the time, and that's pretty hair raising (not that I have much!).

I lived through the last 20 years of the Cold War. What a mad thing it was - total distrust of the "other side", it's a wonder we didn't end up in a nuclear winter.

(See also BBC's "Threads", utterly terrifying yet compelling viewing).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] It is utterly miraculous that we didn't all blow everything up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

@[email protected] we came so close during Able Archer in 83 (I think!) and were only saved by a very brave Soviet man who refused to believe that the traces he was seeing were real.

I know you know this, but by crikey we were literal seconds from nuclear Armageddon and one man's intransigence pretty much saved the entire world as we knew it.

Like I said, what a mad time that was!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

@[email protected] Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@[email protected] this place was surprisingly fun to visit despite what it was originally intended to do. Did you get to do the whole top-to-bottom tour? They took us down to see the thrust redirection vanes and the sump

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

@[email protected] Yes. If you read the thread you will see my extensive writeup on the place.