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Photo Diary: A Titan I Nuclear Missile in Georgia [1]
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Date: 2022-10-22
When I travel from one city to another in my camper van, my place of choice to spend the night along the way is Cracker Barrel, which allows campers and RVs to overnight in their parking lots.
Usually I just pick a Cracker Barrel that is roughly halfway to wherever I am going. But when I mapped out a route from Knoxville TN to St Pete FL, I picked a particular spot to stop for the night (which also happened to be roughly halfway): the itty bitty town of Cordele, Georgia. Not much more than a collection of restaurants, gas stations and motels alongside I-75, Cordele is most famous for its nuclear missile.
For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit. I am currently on my way to Florida for the winter.
The Atlas ICBM, deployed in 1959, gave the Air Force the ability to hit Soviet targets with nuclear weapons from bases inside the United States, but it was not an ideal solution. Atlas could not be launched from inside its protective underground silo, which made it vulnerable to a Soviet strike, and it took an inordinately long time to ready the missile for firing.
Research on a replacement missile had already begun even as the Atlas was being deployed: the Air Force had been working on the Titan missile as a hedge in case the Atlas proved to be unworkable. In its original version, the Titan was a two-stage liquid-fueled rocket with a range of 6300 miles, and could deliver the 4-megaton W38 warhead.
When the Atlas successfully entered service, plans called for the Titan project to be dropped. But in 1957, after the Russians launched Sputnik, the Air Force fell into a panic and ordered both missiles into production. The first successful test flight of the Titan I was in 1960, but within just a few years the Air Force began replacing its 54 service Titan Is with newer Titan IIs, which had better range and an even bigger warhead. (Essentially, the Titan II is a modified version based on two Titan I first stages stacked on top of each other.)
After the Titan Is were retired, the Air Force had over 80 of them as surplus, many of which had been used for training and had never held fuel or a warhead. There was some talk of using them as satellite launchers, but the Atlas was already filling that role. So, hoping to save the costs of scrapping them, the Pentagon offered the no-longer-wanted missiles to museums, city parks, school buildings, and anybody else who wanted one as a static display. A total of 33 missiles became outdoors exhibits in various places. The rest were scrapped.
In 1968 the city council and the Rotary Club of Cordele GA, led by Air Force veteran John Pate, asked the Air Force for a display missile, and this was sent to nearby Robins Air Force Base, refurbished (the original panels were apparently still mildly radioactive and were replaced with new aluminum), then moved by truck to a spot along Interstate I-75 Exit 101. Missile Number SM-49 60-3694 had been built in 1960.
The missile was officially dedicated in July 1969. Originally, the Titan was dubbed the “Confederate Air Force Pad One”. Recently, when that name became … uh … problematic … this was officially altered to just “Air Force Pad One”.
Some photos:
Located in a parking lot right off the Interstate
Not a model, not a reproduction—it’s the real thing
The sign explains why the missile is here
The liquid-fueled missile has two stages
Two XLR-87 rocket engines propel the first stage
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/22/2128343/-Photo-Diary-A-Titan-I-Nuclear-Missile-in-Georgia
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