The Atlas site was originally built to serve the 564th Strategic Missile Wing out of FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne with contracts let in 1958. By the time the site was completed, the 564th had split into three separate wings - the 564th, 565th and 566th. The unit patch of the 566th is below. (What the HELL is that wierd creature?)
When it went active, it was as one of 9 sites of the 566th Strategic Missile Wing and numbered site 566-6, the 6th site in the wing. Other sites in the wing were Ft. Collins, Grover, Nunn, Greeley, Kimball, NB, Chugwater, WY (Jim Amos' Frontier Aerospace site), Pine Bluffs and Lagrange. The Atlas site was active from 7/1/61 through 3/25/65 when it was decommissioned due to the activation of over 200 Minuteman I silos.
Unfortunately, the pre-burial pic I had found on the web seems to have dissapeared, but I do have some other images I found shown below. At home I think I have a copy of the pre-burial image and I'll try to post that if I can find it.
The below pic is of a fully operational Atlas E, probably the Chugwater site, taken in 1965 just prior to decommissioning - this pic is of a fueling exercise.
The picture below is reputed to be the Briggsdale site, however the land and road layout leads me to believe it is not. Note that there is no LOX plume coming off the bird so this is probably a missile installation shot as there is also no warhead or warhead shroud on the bird.
Finally, here is a line drawing showing the layout of an Atlas E coffin silo. All were built identically - unfortunately this doesn't show the layout of the rest of the facility. I'm still looking for the drawing I found of a full site map so you can relate it to the layout of things at the Atlas Site.
Some other interesting factoids... the concrete pad where we launch from - including the pipe stubs sticking out, was what is called a spray pad. The evaporation of water sprayed from the pipes was an intrinsic part of the LOX system and was used as one stage in the refrigeration process used to make LOX onsite. The large dirt mound immediately adjacent to the spray pad is the actual coffin silo (the missiles laid down horizontally and were tilted up after the roof was retracted)
The Atlas site access stairway was only blocked in 1996 and is somewhere out in the low spot north of the road. The control center is the larger mound south of the road and approximately 100' away from the coffin silo mound. I'm working on an annotated version of the aerial photo which I'll post as soon as I can.
More to come as I put the material together. Eventually I'll post an article here on the site based on this posting.
Here are some links to some sites with further information:
http://coloradorick.smugmug.com/gallery/1416218#67151607
http://w3.uwyo.edu/~jimkirk/atlas.html
This is the Frontier Aerospace silo interior:
http://www.frontierastronautics.com/facilities.htm
Warren
Very cool, Warren. Thanks for putting that together. Just imagine having to design these rockets and facilities to go from the rocket laying empty on its side to launching to space in less time than it takes the Russian nukes to go from detection (and verification!) to arrival. Yikes.
Warren, that is WAY cool, thanks! I got my NAR L1 there in April of 1999, on a LOC Vulcanite and an H123....
Now THAT'S what I'm talking about.
I love this stuff. I can waste all kinds of time here at work looking at it....
Thanks!!!
About two years ago I had the opportunity to go into an old silo out east of Aurora.
We took a lot of pictures and probably inhaled more asbestos than we should have.
I have pictures up here http://activeoptics.net/RMMS/SpaceConsole.swf if you'd like to take a look.
(It is a flash animated menu)
Murdock
How deep do you think the water was in the Silo part?
In Texas, there is a silo that has been turned into a SCUBA dive spot and they do Technical - deep dives in it along with normal dives. You access it via the passage you guys walked down. I thought it was another 150-200' down from there, but can't remember now. There may have been a higher point to access the water to get to that depth. At any rate, you have to be careful in it because of all the stuff that is hanging off the walls and debris on the bottom that has fallen in......
About two years ago I had the opportunity to go into an old silo out east of Aurora.
We took a lot of pictures and probably inhaled more asbestos than we should have.
I have pictures up here http://activeoptics.net/RMMS/SpaceConsole.swf if you'd like to take a look.
(It is a flash animated menu)
Murdock
The silo east of Aurora is a 3 silo complex for the Titan 1. It is for sale for $2.8M and includes 60,000 sq ft of underground space in addition to the silos themselves. The silos are from 50-60 feet deep in water and require continuous pumping to keep dry.
Pictures interior and exterior are at:
http://www.missilebases.com/visit_titan1/
By the way, missile silos and similar underground facilities are a bit of a fascination for me - I've even explored buying the Atlas site from the Forest Service, but due to the fact that it's an EPA Superfund site (PCB, RP1 Kerosene and asbestos contamination) they are unable to sell it.
Warren
The local dive shops had looked into buying it at one time for a local cert place, that way a trip to Blue Hole NM was not needed.
They were told it would be cleaned up before they bought it, but between the fine print (cleanup that was left to do) and the dive business being so bad in CO they had to give it up.
There is no financing available and clean up cost are estimated to be another couple million on top. It would make a dandy hardened data center if the place were fully refurbished and you walled off the silos. There is a generator room sporting a couple of 500kW generators, or at least the facilities to install them as well as a couple 40,000 gallon underground diesel tanks. To buy it, clean it up and then and trick it out, you'd probably spend $8M or so before the first servers were rolled in the door.
Warren
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