Author: Sarah Laskow / Source: Atlas Obscura
This week we’re telling the stories of five nuclear accidents that burst into public view. Previously: The “demon core” that killed two scientists and missing nuclear warheads
After the accident, the area around the missile silo was littered with debris—boulders of concrete, giant springs, pieces of navigation systems.
The silo’s cover, made of hundreds of tons of concrete, was half destroyed. The remaining half, the author David K. Stumpf writes in Titan II: A History of the Cold War Missile Program, had launched into the air and spun 180 degrees before landing back on the ground.One moment, the team at the new operational test facility had been on the verge of celebrating, finally, a successful trial run of the launch sequence for the powerful Titan I missile. The next, they were bracing against an explosion that destroyed the facility beyond repair.
At the end of the 1950s, the United States military began developing the Titans as part of its growing supply of intercontinental ballistic missiles. These were giant rockets, designed to fly long distances while carrying nuclear weapons. By 1960, teams at Cape Canaveral had run several successful tests of the new missiles, and a new facility, located at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, was ready to start testing out the missile under operational conditions.
By the evening of December 3, 1960, eight tests had already failed because of “minor…
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