Missile Base for Sale | Hacker News Reader

Missile Base for Sale

mobile.missilebaseforsale.com

126 pointsiamhamm134 comments

Asking $1,500,000.00 January 14, 2021: Reduced to $550,000

Terms: Cash or $500,000 down and owner carry remainder

They'll carry the remaining $50k after your $500k down payment. Sounds like they're okay with $500k flat to me.

Edit: I'm not seeing an address for the site. I need to know what school district it is in, and how close to downtown and other activity centers. Maybe that helps explain the $50k wiggle room?

>> now what school district it is in, and how close to downtown and other activity centers.

It is a missile silo. They didn't put those things close to city hall. According to GoogleMaps it appears to be about a kilometre from Nekoma, a town of 50 that may or may not have a school. The next town is Langdon, ~2000 people 30km away. Your choice of schools and/or coffee shops might be limited.

Lol. The nearest Tesla supercharger is in 85km away ... in Canada. The nearest US charger is in Fargo, 200km away. Nearest starbucks is 100km. But given that the roads all go north-south or east-west, I would add about 50% to those numbers for driving distance. If there is a nowhere, this is the middle.

Nike facilities were built close to residential areas in the northeast. Sprint is not an ICBM either. It's an ABM and not such a massive rocket that it would need a large safety zone around the launch site.

The safety zone isn't to protect against the missile exploding. It is to keep the facility far enough away from the likely targets of incoming warheads that they could differentiate warheads from decoys. (As warheads enter the atmosphere the lighter decoys fall away. You want to be at 90* to the warhead flight path to best see this.) Some site were indeed near residential areas in other parts of the country but those were not protecting suburbs. They were protecting more distant targets: population centres and military facilities.

Is that describing the best spot for the interceptor itself, or the radar guiding the interceptor? (Not necessarily at the same site, and I can imaging reasons why separate sites would be better.)

In the days before perfect network connectivity? Both. There are also time delay issues. You want the sensor (radar) the 'computer' and the launch site all close together so they can coordinate the intercept without communication delays, without long radio links that are likely useless during nuclear war.

Sprint was meant for raw speed. It famously accelerated at like 100g. The shortest intercept is one that is launched perpendicular to the incoming warhead. The interceptor goes out vertical as the enemy warhead is coming in more horizontal on its way to the city 400km down the road from the interceptor base.

It probably depended on the geography. I know in the case of the site in Golden Gate Recreational Area, the (Nike not Sprint) interceptor site is/was near the fort there. The control and radar systems (which have been at least partly brought down) were originally on a hill overlooking the site. I don't know if the control/radar system also controlled other interceptor sites or not.

I grew up literally next door to one about 20 miles west of Philadelphia. Most of the Nike sites are just ruins at this point like the one on Angel Island but there's one just over the Golden Gate from SF that's the most fully restored site in the US and gives tours. https://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm

They initially had conventional warheads as I recall and they were primarily intended as bomber defense. They'd explode a warhead above a flight of bombers so they'd be hit by a massive shock wave.

Eventually, Nike missiles had a selectable yield nuclear warhead. The first salvo was set to intercept at 90 miles away, with 40 Kiloton of yield. The next was 45 miles away, and 20 Kiloton, and the "Hail Mary" was directly overhead, with 2 Kiloton yield.

> may or may not have a school.

The listings was very clear:about whats around them "Langdon, 9 miles [about 15km] Amenities: grocery store, gas stations, school district, ... "

I did not say that Langdon did not have a school. The sentence you quote is about Nekoma, the town immediately beside the listed property, which at 50 people is clearly so small as to likely not have any formal school.

"School district" is also very different than "school". Being in a district means that you are in a district that has school not that that school is anywhere nearby. It may be a long bus ride every day. Being in a district only means you will not have to home school your kids. And Langdon has one highschool. Choices are therefore very limited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon,_North_Dakota

The day I decide where to live based on nearest Starbucks, please, just shoot me.

Amount of nearby Starbucks branches around was a consideration for me when I picked my last flat.

This is not for the occasional Frappuccino but as a simple indicator how popular a particular neighborhood is. It also tells some, but not much, about the demography too.

Starbucks is also one of the cheapest places you can get coffee/sweet drinks in my city so it’s nice to have some around ^^

Cheapest? The one Starbucks within 50 miles of me is the most expensive place for coffee.

I live in an arguably upper middle class neighborhood of Istanbul, one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world.

Most coffee shops around me are fancy third wave shops, making Starbucks a cheap choice. I’m sure I can find a cheaper places couple neighborhoods away but streets are not flat, traffic is always terrible and dangerous for pedestrians.

I checked out of curiosity and we have more than 200 branches within 50 miles of me.

Turkey population density: 109/km2

Population density in my state: 6.35/km2

50 miles/100km is nothing in many parts of north america. I have in all honesty driven that far just to pick up groceries.

Driving a distance to procure groceries is a far cry from driving to a Starbucks.

When moving, there is nothing wrong with checking out how far away Starbucks is. It worked for me and it is far...

I would love to know an estimate on what annual upkeep would cost you. For all I know, it costs $200k annually just to keep it from flooding.

Maybe you could get the Flex Seal guy to do his next commercial there and seal it for free.

It's located here https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8490754,-98.4321807,564m/dat...

103rd Ave NE & 99th St

I'm spoiled; I'm disappointed when I go into 3D mode and the structures don't rise above the ground.

It's not good to use any Google products or services. Here is a good alternative: https://zoom.earth/#view=48.84914,-98.431622,18z

It's perfectly reasonable to use Google products or services because, quite often, they are just flat out better. I'd say that's the case here since the Google one has much higher fidelity at higher levels of zoom. Besides, zoom.earth uses Microsoft imagery so pick your poison if you have issues with mega-corps with supposed privacy issues.

If Google ever makes a better product (and they don't, see this thread re youtube: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28338364), it is merely a con to get people to use their products. They aren't doing it in good faith, it's just to trap people so they can abuse them.

> I'm not seeing an address for the site. I need to know what school district it is in, and how close to downtown and other activity centers. Maybe that helps explain the $50k wiggle room?

Some of that information is on the site.

Langdon, 9 miles Amenities: grocery store, gas stations, school district, multiple banks, shopping, drug store, building supplies, hardware store, hotels, movie theater

Winkler, Manitoba, 45 min Amenities: chain restaraunts and stores including Wal-Mart

Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1.5 hours Amenities: large metro city with many cultural attractions

Grand Forks, ND, 2 hours Amenities: large metro city with many cultural attractions

To be honest, I was just being cute with the school district/amenities. What I really want to do is use the address to look it up on a light pollution map to see about using for an astronomy site.

Funny

For the price of a down payment on a small Silicon Valley home, you too could own a 36-acre missile site!

Downtown? The entire county that this is in has fewer than 4k people living there. This would be for someone who wants to get as far away from activity centers as possible while still staying in the lower 48.

But does it have fiber internet?

I was wondering the same, and surprisingly, the answer is yes.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbqZ9rQQ_E around 6:14.

If you can afford $500k in cash, you can afford to have fiber run to you.

You need to run fiber from somewhere, and something tells me there is no connection office in few hundred miles.

I suspect they didn't change the terms when they marked it down by nearly 2/3rds.

Here's a 6 minute video explaining the sprint missile for those unaware and interested (rather fascinating technology for the 70s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dl9Ovwmnxw

That's honestly why I clicked on the article, it's actually an ABM (anti-ballistic missle)

For those that need a little teaser to be incentivized to click on the YouTube link, here's the title of the video 'Super Pointy Sprint Missile - 0 to Mach 10 in 15 Seconds - 100Gs & 6000°F'

If you have any interest in aerospace at all and have never heard of the Sprint, take a gander, it's a spectacular edge case in engineering.

It'd be a great video if not for the robot narration voice. I wish people would just read it themselves. I couldn't watch it with that voice talking.

I believe it's actually a person who doesn't believe in intonation.

Very fascinating and some truly stunning footage. What I can’t help thinking about viewing this marvel of technology is what humanity might have achieved if the prodigious efforts and staggering sums that went into the Cold War arms race went into making the world a better place…really, as amazing as this is, it was ultimately a tremendous waste.

Avoiding war is never a waste and overall technological progress was faster during the Cold War..

They did make the world a better place, winning the Cold War dealt a huge blow to totalitarian communist ideology everywhere and many free societies replaced the old Soviet States.

Just look at what the fall of the USSR did for life expectancies there!

It actually went, as it was found that union's demographic statistics was all forged perpetually since Stalin

Forged statistics or not, at least there are not millions being starved to death, sent to gulags, or relocated against their will.

"it glows white as it flies". Wow.

Skip first two minutes.

After that has a good mixture of technical and political limitations.

From Wikipedia “ Sprint accelerated at 100 g, reaching a speed of Mach 10 in 5 seconds. Such a high velocity at relatively low altitudes created skin temperatures up to 6,200 °F (3,430 °C), requiring an ablative shield to dissipate the heat. The high temperature caused a plasma to form around the missile, requiring extremely powerful radio signals to reach it for guidance. The missile glowed bright white as it flew.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)?wprov=sfti1

That was one of the four outlying defense bases to defend the Safeguard radars. The huge radar at the main base in the center is still working, and the main site is still a USAF installation.

The US has some working missile defenses. Vandenberg is the main US launch site for them. They might be able to stop an attack from North Korea, or at least thin it out a bit. They only have 30 interceptors or so, which is nowhere near enough to do much against a superpower attack. That missile defense operation is run by the Army, not the USAF or Space Force.

Some US Navy ships have anti-ICBM capability, but that's only useful if a ship happens to be in the right position at the right time.

> Some US Navy ships have anti-ICBM capability, but that's only useful if a ship happens to be in the right position at the right time.

Interesting anecdote on this topic: One of these shipborne anti-ICBM systems is called the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. By all accounts it seems successful enough of a system, but as Animats mentions above there is the problem that it is only useful if the ships are in the right place. And if you never move your ships, why would you want to pay all the extra costs associated with their maintenance? So people come up with the concept of installing the same system on shore based installations. They called it the Aegis Ashore system. If you squint at it it kinda looks like as if the rough outline of a ship's superstructure is sunk into the concrete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defens...

So now we have Aegis, and Aegis Ashore. Here comes the twist. Japan wanted to install the Aegis Ashore system, but for various reasons they couldn't find the right place on land to put it. So they come up with the idea of installing it on barges. And if they do we will have Aegis Ashore-Afloat. :) (Though I'm reading just now that it seems they have canceled these plans. Pity.)

For obvious reasons, nobody in Japan really wanted to live right next to a missile defence silo.

> Some US Navy ships have anti-ICBM capability, but that's only useful if a ship happens to be in the right position at the right time

A lot of the interest in surface ships shooting down ballistic missiles is because China and Russia have been developing hyper-sonic anti-ship missiles.

And the navy wants to pretend their surface fleet isn't sitting ducks against real state actors in an actual war with a real power.

Allegedly the Navy has an actual usable point defense laser... but I strongly suspect all these high tech capital defenses are just the usual Navy boondoggles to enrich contractors and will be worthless against swarm drone attacks.

Not yet. Laser defense systems keep getting better each year. Solid state 70KW lasers are in test. The consensus is that they start to get militarily useful above 100KW.

Higher powered chemical lasers have been built, but were too bulky, fragile, and difficult to operate. The high point of this was MIRACL, a big fixed-installation megawatt chemical laser.[1] Israel tried a US-made chemical laser about a decade ago, and it worked against small rockets and artillery shells, but it took several semitrailers of support equipment. A newer one built in Israel is less bulky and solid state, and will probably go into service.

These are all systems with ranges of tens of kilometers at maximum. ICBMs remain out of reach for now.

The USAF is already testing lasers against drone swarms.[2] That's not as hard. 30KW can take out a drone, and the laser can be re-positioned fast. Truck-mounted versions of that will probably surround US air bases in hostile territory within a very few years.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRACL

[2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a29727696...

I get in, uh "discussions" with pro-navy people a lot about ICBMs. Admittedly I get most of my anti-surface navy bias from War Nerd and the Millenium Exercise...and Argentina sinking UK ships in the Falklands... but still.

Is it true that the basic cruise supersonic missle that hugs the surface and then plops up and drops from above is basically undefendable by surface ships? It's guidance that is 1970s tech at best.

Other Navy guys said their ships would start going into evasive maneuvers and no missle at hypersonic speeds could hit them. With JDAM tech that seems pretty specious.

Another one of the four outlying launch sites is a tourist destination.[1]

[1] http://rsl3.com

Sounds like a high value target, and therefore a foolish place for a private individual to build a bunker.

It's an (old) ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile), not ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) silo. ABMs shoot down incoming ICBMs.

So if I live there, I'll be able to survive the upcoming (eventual) nuclear war due to my own ICBM defense system!

Living in the middle of nowhere is probably a better survival strategy, FWIW. In the event that the US is attacked, ICBM silos act as a nuclear sponge -- things adversaries have to blow up, lest we fire back using them. ABMs are targets too, because they enhance the sponge.

So living far from silos (and their command centers), and far from the large cities that the sponge protects, is a better survival strategy. :)

Immediate survival strategy. You’d have to be more worried about what happens after the bombs fall.

I'm tired of looking for bunkers to purchase and the sellers not including any anti-ballistic missile technology along with the purchase.

I mean when you buy a house with a pool are you expecting any of the pool hardware to be removed? No.

It's so inconsiderate. How am I supposed to establish my own sovereignty over my neighbors without missile tech? Do you know how much of a hassle it is to source ballistics?

You think to yourself, "Wow! What a steal on a bunker!" And then you realize the price drop is because they've moved out all of the military hardware. What shysters.

First, my HOA says I can't land my Apache right next to my bunker, and that it needs to be in its own field. Then, they say I can only transport warheads in the evening.

It's a national tragedy and it needs to stop.

My personal favorite missile. Add some Sprint replicas and this would make a cool, if entirely impractical, manspace.

Who has a favorite "missile". seriously?

Mine is the R9X "Flying Ginsu"

It's a Hellfire modified to deploy effectively big swords as it closes in, so it only shreds people within 4ft or so of the target.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-u-s-missile-aims-to-kill...

I really think most people do. Mine is the brahmos.

Mine's the sidewinder.

Mine is the Minuteman II ICBM from the late 60's. My father launched one, as a test, but he didn't know it was a test at the time. They got orders, they launched. I have a beautiful large color photo of the one he launched coming out of the ground, and the key he turned mounted on a USAF plaque. The teeth were filed off though. He said the beginning of the movie War Games (missile silo scene) was the most accurate depiction of his job that he'd seen.

Maverick and Exocet for me...well and the R-36M, but that one is just a bit too terrifying.

I have no favorite missle—maybe the Phoenix if I were pressed—but I do have a scary-nightmare-clown missle, and it is the Exocet.

Why do all the coolest missiles has its own GRAU index number? R-36’s ploop pow pow pow is too Gundam, and so is P-800 Onyx/BrahMos, with its VLS launch and RCS tipover followed by IRR transition. It sounds cool already just sprinkling these TLAs.

R-36M aka SS-18 Satan. The name says it all.

That's what you get when your social security and education policy is Hunger Games equivalent in the Middle East. Exporting democracy one bomb at a time.

Buyer beware: lots of ICBM fuel is toxic. Due to poor containment practices, many former missile sites are now borderline superfund sites due to fuel that's leaked into the ground.

The Sprint missile was solid fueled. It couldn't leak fuel.

Ah, OK. I'm thinking of Titan, which was liquid fueled by some truly nasty chemicals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-25C_Titan_II#Development

Hydrazine would've long decomposed since upon air exposure

Depending on how much soaked into concrete and other materials, couldn't there still be outgassing?

Yeah IDK what the prior comment is talking about. Plenty of Titan sites are borderline superfund sites due to poor fuel containment. (Source: Titan Missile Museum in Tucson, AZ.) Hydrazine was just one of many nasty chemicals they had to store on site at Titan sites.

Title is wrong - Sprint was a solid fueled ABM that was activated for only a few months (at most) before decommissioning.

Anti-ballistic missile, in case you didn't know (like me).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missile

I guess it's a good thing this wasn't an ICBM then, eh?

I recently watched this YouTube about visiting a bunker community in South Dakota that was pretty interesting: https://youtu.be/QW6DIchOpnc

Looks like it’s only 1/10 of the price to buy one of those instead!

The cool kids all bought New Zealand citizenship so this is your once in a lifetime opportunity to invest in their hand-me-downs oops I mean tax write offs...

What

I think it's a reference to the fact that NZ looks like a great place to ride out a nuclear exchange.

Most of the nuclear powers are in the northern hemisphere, so you want to be southern.

Obviously you want to be somewhere that's not going to be a target, and as a small island nation without nukes (and in fact one that forbids nuclear-powered vehicles from entering its airspace: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zon...), NZ is very unlikely to be targeted by any nuclear combatants.

It's just big enough that it's got some chance of sustaining basic industry in event of the major powers collapsing back into the stone age.

Despite that, as a remote island, no one's likely to invade it for its resources or infrastructure after a nuclear war. It's just too hard to get there without modern navies and air forces.

So, all that to say I think the OP is (sarcastically?) suggesting that someone rich has acquired a place in NZ and is looking to dump this bunker they no longer have a use for.

Located here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8490754,-98.4321807,564m/dat...

I was really confused why a Telecom owned a missile site for way too long....

Bell Labs did many, many more things than telecom.

These feel like some of the most likely places to get nuked if an old system accidentally goes off.

Maybe someone adventurous could reach out to the Russian government and request that the site be taken off any lists that may or may not exist, and invite them to their housewarming party?

Though Russia seems like a country that would say "sure" then add it to the list if it wasn't already just as a joke.

Though China might just nuke the site just to be sure.

China isn't going to waste 1 of their 400 shots and abandon the no-first-use doctrine over something so minuscule.

Look it up. The US/Soviet missile pissing contest completely dwarfs every other nation, even after various disarmament treaties. Russia still has the most.

You're saying that China won't launch a nuclear first strike against an unused silo based on a joking email? Interesting commentary.

That's what I thought first too. Rather, it doesn't have to be an old system but it can be spotted as an active missile launcher site by visual survillance.

Maybe, but I feel like there has to be a whole team dedicated to looking where to bomb as to not waste them on targets that are no longer operational.

I wonder if there are equivalents of missilebaseforsale.com for the former Soviet Union

Im sure there is the difference is that they probably sell the missiles too…

Possibly, but you’re likely buying it “as-is”.

I believe Elon tried to purchase a rocket from Russia many years ago and even travelled there to meet with people who claimed to be able to broker a sale.

You got me wondering and I could not find anything with a quick Google search.

Apparently personal bunkers weren't popular even during the Cold War.

https://vc.ru/story/139377-mesto-gde-mozhno-spryatatsya-skol...

It may be that people just didn't have the money for this kind of stuff and oligarchs would rather build castles that no one knows about than buy old bunkers (which would be in way worse shape in ex USSR I imagine).

Bunkers aren’t that great for long term survival. You’re effectively betting that you can survive in a small isolated prison for N years to emerge without resources or the ability to feed yourself. You are also betting that the underground structure isn’t going to need maintenance in those N years, and that you won’t simply be viewed as a resource cache by whoever is still on the surface.

Now if we start talking about remote bunkers far away from cities - you start also asking the question of why you would need a bunker! If you build an off grid house in Whistler BC you are highly unlikely to be targeted by a nuke, or be in the fallout zone of any nukes. Rural east coast and southeastern US are also great options. You can even set up a plan for a permanent farming installation in the event of a disaster.

>If you build an off grid house in Whistler BC you are highly unlikely to be targeted by a nuke, or be in the fallout zone of any nukes. Rural east coast and southeastern US are also great options. You can even set up a plan for a permanent farming installation in the event of a disaster.

You'll still just be a resource cache for whatever roaming bands of anarchic clans that develop amidst the fallout. And subsistence farming is a complete fantasy; you'll starve very quickly. The only survival scenario that is realistic in an apocalyptic world is one built around trade, alliances, and firepower. Feudalism, essentially. Anyone who thinks they'll be able to go their own way and remain hidden will be the first ones killed off.

Something something New Zealand.

Which sounds good until you need a dentist or doctor and you discover you forgot to bring a surgery and/or hospital.

Or a vet. Or spare parts. Or tools/medications you don't already have.

Or any essential consumable that has a shelf life of (if you're lucky...) less than fifty years.

This family did it for 40 years. Not a bad run:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-rus...

Long term survival requires short term survival first. Bunkers are great for short term survival.

If surviving a nuclear Holocaust is in your priority list, then it’s much cheaper and more effective to move somewhere far away from the blasts and fallout.

E.g. live far away from miltary installations, keep a reasonable distance from metros, and avoid any place between the Appalachian mountains and the Sierra Nevada mountains (due to fallout).

I think they had plenty of government bunkers, even if there weren't many personal ones. There are some pretty interesting videos of urban explorers going through them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKWFx0QAW2w

Check out the Death Wears Bunny Slippers Youtube channel. This guy and his family buy a site like this a refit it into a vacation home: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd50A5qLv8FemVufSvDgkCQ

It's not just hardened against blast overpressure, it is hardened against the electromagnetic pulse created by the Sprint and Spartan ABM warhead...

Or at least it used to be, EMP proofing takes maintenance.

That kind of system risks blinding and discombobulating itself as soon as it takes its first shot.

>It's not just hardened against blast overpressure, it is hardened against the electromagnetic pulse created by the Sprint and Spartan ABM warhead...

Does this mean that cell phones won't work? (Aside from being underground.)

> EMP proofing takes maintenance.

??????

I'm assuming that the copper EMP shielding tends to corrode without regular maintenance. The listing mentions there was very high humidity in there, I bet it did a number on the copper.

Without the missile I am not moved by the price decrease.

Could this be set up as the level from Goldeneye, maybe turn the place into a theme park?

After seeing how the listing makes a big deal about how it's a mere 2 hours from the bustling metropolis of Grand Forks, I think the location might be a bit of an issue

Rent it out for milsim events

Erm, if you buy it, do you need to inform Russians and Chinese to delete that particular site as a target in case of the nuclear exchange? :)

What is the zoning? Can you use the land for anything other than a ABM site? /s

I wonder how something like this could be used in practice in the event of a societal collapse. Who will be the governing body to protect your rights to this site, even if you did own it?

Anybody know of a good website to that lists these sort of properties for sale? (Not just old missile bases, but other old government infrastructure)

https://circaoldhouses.com/churches-lighthouses-quirky-conve...

Circa has a site for quirky conversion listings

Thank you, this is awesome. This made me realize that I was really just interested in these types of homes, not just old gov't stuff.

Yeah there's a whole world of these weird listings. If you like this kind of stuff send me a direct message and I'll show you a cool one which is my own property which I just signed a contract for sale, a big old church

What a steal!

The marble kitchenette alone is worth the price.

Anything that lists Winkler Manitoba as an attraction is an obvious scam.

The "city" seal has a shopping cart on it!

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/577912501276278784/f8oM...

And the settings icon. And pasta? Maybe I can shop, get my car fixed and get something to eat? Sounds attractive.

> pasta

I think it's supposed to be a sheaf of grain. Same idea!

I think you would have been right by putting "shopping cart" in quotes as well. Blimey.

Langdon is a nice little town, I wouldn't call it an attraction however, but to each their own...

I was very surprised to know that US ICBM sites in Dakotas are so poorly guarded.

Russian ICBM sites are all in the middle of nowhere, and are tiny fortresses

The idea isn't have a guard over each silo. Just make it hard to get into a silo and send guards over if you need to.

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