Decommissioned Atlas F missile silo complex for sale | Hacker News Reader

Decommissioned Atlas F missile silo complex for sale

zillow.com

350 pointsotras209 comments

Lots of water pooling and etc. i wonder how much work it would take to fix it up.

I had a friend growing up who had a missile silo on the edge of their property.

Folks in the area never talked about them but everyone knew where they were. We would go look at it once in a while. Really eerie that out in this peaceful prairie was a horrific weapon just sleeping and waiting. Ready to go at all times. Pointed at folks on the other side of the planet nobody in the prairie knew or would likely ever meet.

After the Cold War they were decommissioning them. While driving out there I was waved down my an APC and some soldiers. I pulled over, they asked me to wait with them.

A couple convoys of more soldiers drove by, trucks, then a big convoy with a big white truck.

I asked “Was that the real thing?” The soldier said “They don’t bring us ALL out here unless it is.”

They thanked me for waiting and told me I could go after one more group when by.

These guys [1] did a series of videos on a similar one. They answer a lot of questions about what it takes, but the upshot is... probably not worth the trouble for 99% of folks.

[1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-KKIb8rvtMQnKZOfxShrcAH5...

The one featured in Zillow ad wouldn't require this much work.

It's basically dry, though god only knows what the bottom of the silo itself looks like.

Upshot: Probably still has 2 nukes pointed at it. Better to have a front row seat than be a “survivor”.

That should be in the listing. Pros: immediate painless surprise death in case of nuclear war. Cons: damp, bit of a fixer upper.

If not a direct hit, more likely an extended entombment after the entrance stairwell collapses and blocks the blast door. Maybe that's the second reason missileers carried sidearms.

Russia knows the sites were decommissioned, so it wouldn't waste a missile on it.

Even if some people know, are we sure if it was disseminated across all Classified channels up and down and then the people in charge of the lists updated them? :p

It also means they could be the one who purchases it!

Doubt it. Decommissioning silos is transparent as part of treaty verifications.

I imagine getting it operational again would take years of very obvious work.

Why would Russia or whoever waste two nukes on a silo purported to be nuke proof in the middle of nowhere?

There are two bits of context you need to understand this.

First: Early nuclear missiles weren't very accurate - you don't have to be very accurate when your target is the size of Moscow. A missile silo is a much smaller target!

So AIUI missile silos were hardened to survive a nuclear bomb landing 500m away - but they wouldn't survive a direct hit.

Second: There was a theory, at one point in the cold war, that one side could launch a surprise attack that struck and disabled the other side's nuclear weapons. Or at least, disabled a large enough fraction that the counterattack was survivable.

This was seen as winning. Or as close to winning as you can get, in a nuclear war. And it was seen as relatively more ethical than targeting cities.

The jargon for this is "counterforce" or "disarming" strike [1] and it was part of the rationale for having a ridiculous number of bombs - if you have enough bombs to destroy the world 10 times over, you can destroy the world even if 90% of your bombs have been destroyed in a surprise attack.

Later in the cold war other technologies were developed - high precision guidance, submarine launched missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Between them they made a disarming strike seem unlikely to work. But on the other hand there are still an awful lot of missiles around and they gotta be targeted somewhere. If you'd already sent a dozen at the pentagon and a dozen at the white house, why not send some of the remainder at a few nuclear silos?

Of course, you might well say this all seems pretty unlikely. A nuclear war? In this day and age? But people who think that probably aren't in the market for a disused nuclear bunker, except as a historical curiosity.

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

Still better to point them at NZ, to get the capitalistic overlords hiding there :-)

Isn't HN amazing. Last week I learned about Countervalue : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue

Another bit of context - some responses on the internet weren't intended to be entirely literal in their nature.

I always forget that we're "Apes in trousers"[1] until I read comments like this.

1. I just read this term in Lessons of History (Durrant)

Why would that be? Don't you think "they" have better uses for their spare nukes? And intelligence agencies updating the list of target objects?

Probably not but it still beats any large city that likely has about a dozen or more with their name on it.

Funny that this is a selling point. “How are you preparing for the end?” “I’m prepared to go out in the first wave, you?”

They don’t have any pics inside the main silo, just in the upper control room and the entry to the silo. It could be full of water.

Free swimming pool included!

No, No. Algae-farm for fuel and food. Yummie!

Welcome to the Kombucha Pit!

I understand they're usually filled with rubble or concrete as part of decomissioning. Entrances to the office bit are usuall bulldozed.

One might be tempted to think "oh, it's concrete, I'll hose it down". But after recently reading up on it a bit, some of the missiles had extremely harmful propellants, and if that leaked (which chances are it did), that'd basically be a hazmat site.

It reads like Atlas missiles used kerosene and liquid oxygen. Nothing like hydrazine, etc.

The APU on atlas missiles used ethylene oxide to fuel the turbine, you don't need hydrazine to get toxic aerospace chemical exposure. I would also bet all the money in my pocket those structures are chock full of asbestos and lead.

Somebody on Twitter mentioned that there is likely a lot of asbestos, and other environmental issues that the buyer would be responsible for remediating. I don’t know enough to know if that’s correct or not but it seems reasonable.

Scary to think in retrospect that the presence of this silo might have made y'all a direct target during the Cold War should things have actually turned hot. (Assuming the counter intelligence and reconnaissance determined there was a silo present.)

I'd also worry (not much, but just enough to be creeped out and never want to buy one of these) that there may be some system that is still programmed with old silos as targets. If things heat up again, or if there is some error, that property might be a target.

Have you ever heard the term "nuclear sponge"? Projections for a nuclear war is that like half of the midwest gets nuked to smithereens in order to hit the silos; it probably doesn't matter much if one is in your backyard or a hundred miles down the road.

During the Cold War, we had 1050 holes in the ground, spread across Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and the Dakotas. It was exactly that, an impossible sponge to soak up the Soviet capability. And that's just the Northern Tier Missile field.

> I'd also worry (not much, but just enough to be creeped out and never want to buy one of these) that there may be some system that is still programmed with old silos as targets. If things heat up again, or if there is some error, that property might be a target.

At that point I think you'd also want to ask yourself whether surviving a nuclear war would really be the preferable outcome.

Is there an actual reason why you think it might not be preferable to survive? You can always change your mind if it turns out that it was the wrong choice, right?

Being instantly obliterated might be preferable to watching the only world you've known be destroyed and everyone you ever knew or loved die horribly.

Highly doubtful. If anything you would be free to become the twisted, savage raider you've always wanted to become, roving the lands for scrap and caps.

> the property is designed to withstand a nuclear strike

I really don't see the problem

I grew up in an area absolutely covered in targets (Mather AFB, McClellan AFB, Travis AFB, various Army depots, and the California state Capitol.) I figured I was radioactive vapor if things got that far, so I didn’t obsess over it.

I grew up in Naperville, IL, and one of my teachers told us that we were goners in a nuclear war because we were halfway between Fermilab and Argonne National Lab. We also had a missile silo in our town, although it had been decommissioned and turned into a park by the 90s. Probably would have caught a nuke, just in case.

Nike missile sites were common around the major cities in the US. The were there to shoot down Soviet bombers and try to shoot down an ICBM warhead.

Of course being 1960s technology, the missiles’ inaccuracy and lack of numbers, was offset by having nuclear warheads.

The plan was to set a nuke off above your own city, to try to destroy/deflect another nuke, or an entire bomber squadron. SMH

You would have loved the Air-2A Genie weapon. An air-to-air anti-aircraft missile. Nuclear.

Or the time we dropped nukes down a couple gas wells to experiment with Nuclear Fracking.

The Genie was a rocket, not a missile. Missiles are guided. A nuclear bomb you can just generally boresight more or less in the direction of a bomber formation and let fly, or so went the theory.

The nuclear option was added later on.

The house I grew up in was right next to a Nike base outside of Philadelphia.

For those in the Bay Area, there's a Nike base that offers tours a few days a week in Golden Gate Recreational Area.

Eerie was living in Topeka in the early 80s when “the day after” was released. For those not familiar with the movie or Kansas, Topeka is just west of Lawrence where the movie was set. Seeing the birds fly from familiar looking land freaked me out.

I had never heard of this film before, but the Wikipedia article leads me to believe it had a profound impact on American society and policymakers,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

Pretty incredible. Thanks for sharing!

I was in elementary school at the time. This movie scared the living shit out of every single person I know. Nuclear war didn’t feel hypothetical or fake back then, it felt like a real thing that adults were worried might actually happen.

I was terrified of this movie when I was a little kid. Circa 10 years old. Just seeing the trailer (on NBC?) scared me. Never watched it, even to this day. There was one other movie of this ilk. I remember in the trailer for one or the other, there being a scene with a woman protester, shouting with a British accent, "You cannot win a nuclear war!"

That other movie is Threads (1984), the scene you describe is in the trailer and the full movie is available at archive.org (https://archive.org/details/threads_202007)

Agreed I was growing up in Charleston, SC at the time. Big Polaris base there at the time. We told we were pretty much ash when (not if) WWIII kicked off.

I grew up in Germany in the cold war, around 80 km west of the iron curtain. Prime target for nukes from both sides as it would be the place where Nato and Warshaw Pact would collide. In fact there were even nuclear "landmines" near bridges or other tactical points for making areas impassable by soviet tanks.

During the 80s I was fully aware that - if WW3 would have broken out, even in a limited way - it would have meant game over for me. You'll learn just not to worry about that.

NATO learnt quickly not to discuss results of their own exercises publicly.

Turns out that "success" involved "most of germany dead by NATO nukes" didn't bring positive attention.

> In fact there were even nuclear "landmines" near bridges or other tactical points for making areas impassable by soviet tanks.

Wait, were these ever actually deployed?! They were certainly studied, but I didn't think they ever made it into the ground.

"Command and Control" by Eric Schlosser (I think it was) contains a report about the USA being extremely hesitant and taking ages to reprogram the missiles. So yeah, I'd not be surprised either.

Also, that's a great (audio) book on the general subject.

Unfortunately I personally lived in an even worse spot ... just far enough away to "survive"... for a while.

IMHO, it less scary than living in New York, Washington, Beijing, Moscow, and so on. They are the main targets.

Sounds like the beginning of several zombie movies from the 80s. Only a few minutes after driving past, a canister would roll off the truck bed. Kids would later find it.

And so it goes.

There was a movie in the 80s about two guys who grew up in a fallout shelter with nothing to watch but Humphrey Bogart movies, emerged years later as noir style detectives, and had to fend off mutants from launching the last nuclear missile on earth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_Dreams

Michael Dudikoff, a staple of straight-to-VHS rentals in my youth. Orion was never great but they always entertained.

Was the silo unmanned? Seems weird it was on their property. Not like the government is hurting for land up there.

I thought they were all pretty big complexes with people in a bunker connected to them 24/7

Silos (ie “launch facilities” (LFs)) themselves are uncrewed, except for maintenance. Launch control officers are stationed in an underground bunkers called “launch control centers” (LCCs), which are I think like 10 miles away. Each LCC controls 10 LFs.

it depends on the type of missle silo. for instance the TitanII where manned.

Fair. It looks like you could walk from the control center to the silos in the Titan complexes, which I think are the ones that most often for sale. My info was about the current Minutemen silos. I figured they were all the same.

https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.co0919.sheet/?sp=2

My info was about the current Minutemen silos. I figured they were all the same.

The older missiles were liquid fueled, unlike Minuteman. Which means kerosene added when placed on alert, LOX added just before launch. Probably much simpler to have people do that on-site than try to automate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas#SM-65F_Atlas

And as to the (perhaps somewhat facetious) comment elsewhere in the thread that the Russkies might still have "2 nukes" pointed at this silo, there are currently 400 active Minuteman silos. I'm sure the Russians would rather target those than sites that were decommissioned in 1965.

Or, for Titan, much nastier things (while the current Titan space launch vehicles are fairly inoffensive solid-and-hydrogen, the Titan ICBMs and early launchers were hydrazine).

Er, or not. Just checked; while the Titan IV is no longer in use, it was hydrazine til the end, in 2005(!) I was thinking of the Delta family, which did go from UDMH to hydrogen.

But they are guarded by someone?

The Northern Tier was laid out that way. Their weren't people actively at each silo, but the security was intense, and people were not far away.

The air force has a quick reaction security force they dispatch via helicopters and hen there are regular patrols in trucks.

You can read a bit about them here https://minutemanmissile.com/missilesecurity.html

That's how the Northern Tier was laid out. The southern Tier was a combination system.

What made up the southern tier, and where was/is it?

The Southern Tier was built first. It was liquid fueled missiles with larger warheads, spanning from, if I recall correctly, Arkansas/Missouri to New Mexico. Those silos required hours of preparation to launch, as they had to be fueled first. They had the maintenance and launch control integrated in the facility.

Interesting! That makes sense. It would be a lot of staff given the number of missiles there were/are. Though money and men doesn't seem to be a barrier when it comes to doomsday defense.

I just read an OpEd in WSJ the author argued we need to build more weapons to keep up 1:1 with china. When we already have more than enough to be a deterrent.

As far as we could see it was just the silo and unmanned, but we visited it (rode out to a hull and looked at it from a distance) only a handful of times. We never dared approach it. So there could have been plenty we didn’t know.

> “They don’t bring us ALL out here unless it is.”

Maybe. Sowing confusion about the whereabouts of your warheads can be useful, and that was extensively considered.

See for example https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/1981/8116/811604.pdf, discussing the never implemented “multiple protective shelters” concept.

That even discusses how that can be done when treaties require inspections to be able to count your missiles.

Sadly that link is a 404 now.

Sorry. Try https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/1981/8116/811604.PDF.

I ‘corrected’ that ugly .PDF part without checking whether it broke the URL.

The solider I talked to could just be lying or maybe not even know himself.

This was post cold war when the agreements to stand down ICBMs were rolling out and they were disarming and imploding silos (Russians came to observe even). So I think it was plausible that they were moving things. But yeah I have no way to know, a drill, real deal, it would look the same to me.

In the early 2000s, there was a massive DEA bust involving a decomissioned missile silo turned into an LSD lab (which was apparently responsible for manufacturing 90% of the LSD on the market at the time). Other levels of the facility were turned into a massive party/tripping space - it's a fascinating story.

The man responsible (William Pickard) served quite some time in federal prison but was finally released sometime last year.

I'm sure there's no shortage of creative uses for a property like this.

https://historydaily.org/skinner-pickard-1990s-lsd-lab-built...

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/2-Bay-Area-Men-Busted...

I saw a really good video documentary about this but forgot how to find it. The Wikipedia is fascinating enough in itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard

Edit: My mistake, it was about another duo who also made LSD. I'm pretty sure the silo is mentioned in passing.

The Sunshine Makers Official Trailer 1 (2017) - Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsvElED0-O0

IIRC, there was a murder, torture and kidnapping involved as well…

I think this was also touched on in the show Hamiltons Pharmacopeia

In Germany a formwr bunker was used to host a illegal data center which run a significant part of the dark net. In the end, however, the police raided it and they forgot to lock the place and they had a excel list with all the passwords.

There's a great New Yorker article on this for those interested. It's a pretty fascinating read -- doubtless been posted here a bunch before.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/08/03/the-cold-war-b...

I really dislike the term "illegal data center", which was coined by Germany's yellow press. The data center was perfectly legal (as in: they were allowed to operate a business involving hosting of servers there, and everyone knew they did). What was illegal was some of the business done on its servers - and the fact that the operator did not cooperate with law enforcement.

Maybe it was not an illegal (data center), it was an (illegal data) center.

Time for a (criminal lawyer)

What does “yellow press” mean in this context? I know the usage of the word “yellow” means “cowardly,” but I suspect there is some other connotation/well-known phrase

> Yellow journalism and yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate, well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

Yes you are right with that. Until they knew what was on the servers and helped their users continuing doing it. At moment I think it became criminal.

For those who aren’t aware, the national demand for lysergic acid diethylamide in pure form would comfortably fit in the bottom third of a standard test tube. It has a ridiculously low titer. Few drugs have active doses measured in micrograms.

Hamilton's Pharmacopeia (a docuseries featuring a pharmacologist) has an episode where Hamilton visits and interviews a women who was involved there.

12 minute clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7qliVpGEk0&vl=en

Pre-COVID there was a couple in Connecticut who transformed their entire house into a sex dungeon and were getting $1500 a night renting it on Airbnb. I bet you could do at least ten times that with a missile silo of sin. No worries about cops or nosey neighbors. Cleanup would be really icky though (shudder).

Expensive 10 minutes

There are much better underground bunkers for sale. AT&T had chains of underground bunkers they operated for DoD. Many of those are for sale. Here's one.[1]

These are much more useful. No silo, mostly big high-ceiling areas sized for telephone switches. 3-phase power. Onsite well. These were only shut down a decade or two ago, so they're often in good shape. They're all far from cities, because the whole point was to have backup network nodes that were unlikely to be attacked.

[1] https://homeslandcountrypropertyforsale.com/sustainable-prop...

That is actually surprisingly cheap!

> 0.75 Bathrooms

How does that work?

shower

A full bathroom includes four components: bathtub, shower, sink, toilet. A half bathroom is just a sink and toilet. A 3/4 bath is a bathroom without a bathtub. It's very common in shitty apartments.

How common is this? I’ve never seen a bathroom with a stand up shower listed as 0.75 bathrooms. Were they all supposed to have been listed that way, or is it regional?

I've never seen that either. And it's very common. Hardly just "shitty apartments." In fact, when I had my bathroom remodeled a few years back, I changed it from having a bathtub/shower to just a shower.

3/4 bathrooms are quite common in some places, but listings may be not obvious because if you have 2 of those you will see 1.5 bathrooms and believe there is 1 + 1/2, not 2 x 3/4. My place has such an arrangement, I don't like bathtubs and I find it perfect for me.

All three times I've purchased or sold a house in New Mexico this is standard practice. I never directly asked, but when listing it sounded like bathrooms without a bathtub weren't allowed to be entered into MLS (the national realtor database) as a full bath.

How interesting. I've never encountered it in NY, but I found this site[0] which suggests that what you're describing is how it should be listed.

It would likely turn into a huge mess here if they started enforcing this. A house I previously owned would be reduced from 2.0 bathrooms to 1.75 bathrooms.

[0]: https://govt.westlaw.com/nycrr/Document/I4f71256bcd1711dda43...

On 13 acres! How would one find these?

Why did the government ever buy these? Apparently they could have had private owners pay for them directly.

Compare with this "Luxury Titan II Nuclear Missile Complex" Airbnb to see its full potential :)

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/45816677

That's these guys: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-KKIb8rvtMQnKZOfxShrcAH5...

Perfect place to rent when shit hits the fan!

Heh, underground entrance looks EXACTLY like our entrance within our smaller data center premises here in Riga, a former soviet nuclear shelter. In our case, there is exact same thing on the opposite side. It is designed that way because it lets explosive blast escape the the other doors...

Here you can see, that "brother entrance" is on the other side. http://tour.deac.eu/Grizinkalns.html

Except, we currently don't maintain it to a level that is required to withstand nuclear war, so sorry if you ever wanted those guarantees...

Still, the grass is greener on your side. ;)

"This facility has lots of potential in whatever way you choose to go. A home, apartments or a Bed and Breakfast are just some ideas."

I laughed out loud at the bread and breakfast idea after seeing the photos.

Lots of charm, water, rust…

All our patrons leave glowing reviews!

Ha. "Three thumbs up!"

To be fair, I'll bet there's quite a lot of people who'd stay there as one of those AirBnB experiences.

There's a whole market of doomsday preppers who would absolutely buy in at whatever price you set it. Luxury condos in old silos are a thing. And the cost of excavating, building, and reinforcing the structure is far more than the cost to refurbish the inside of it.

Larpers would pay big bucks to run around a place like this shooting paintballs or airsoft at each other.

Set it up so the above ground barracks has some nice PC/Consoles to play with in the evenings, some hot pockets and Mt. Dew for breakfast and let them larp all day with their buddies for $300/person/day.

$400 and you'll throw in a free tetanus injection. That place looks like an OH&S nightmare. You just need one fat kid to fall down the main shaft and things get real quick.

Yeah, this seems to be the main issue with this, fixing it up to be in compliance with a myriad of either business/residential regulations seems like it would be both a giant headache and a giant cost.

$300/person/day and you're serving them hot pockets and Mountain Dew for breakfast?

Cause that's 70% of a larper's diet and what they requested.

These guys created an AirBnB from one in worse shape.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/45816677

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-KKIb8rvtMQnKZOfxShr...

Given the water intrusion it is a full rebuild and a lot of renovation ... but on the plus side if you wanted a bunker $380k for 11 acres plus all the concrete and digging already done might be a good deal. I would get it inspected for cracks. Cracks will have to be fixed correctly or mold will be a serious health problem. It looks to be in better shape than some remote military sites I worked at given the age. Assume 100% of heating and electrical needs to be replaced. Flush every toilet and have the septic inspected. I wont disgust anyone out with those stories.

Most importantly it would also need to be inspected for chemical contamination both in the facility and in the soil. Many of the sites I worked at had to be entirely destroyed and all the soil chemically treated costing millions in treatment alone with drilling and pump trucks. Ask to see the paperwork from the military from when this property was transitioned.

Atlas silos coming up for sale isn't uncommon. I spent an inordinate of time in my early 20s researching those that were for sale at the time because it sounded like something unique and fun at the time to take on. I never did, but looking at some of the websites that are still online is still good fun [0], [1], [2]. Plenty of them have been restored and there are other classes or facilities as well. An Atlas E as an example [3].

[0] http://silohome.com/atlas_f_for_sale_southwest_.htm [1] http://www.siloworld.net/SITES%20FOR%20SALE/SitesForSale.htm [2] http://atlasmissilesilo.com/ [3] http://www.missilesitehome.com/MissileSiteHome.html

I kinda hope that bike shop is incorporated into the silo just like that farmhouse in Wargames [0]

[0] https://youtu.be/8-T_uhQ0iE4

That reminds me of the contest on Jeopardy recently whose story was about how he toured a missile silo once and realized that his wingspan was so long that he could actually turn both keys at once. He said the tour guide didn't seem to care.

In an earlier thread about free to low cost property, it was mentioned that Kansas has high property taxes, so that might bite you on this silo.

Would you take free land in rural America?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30138545

$13K/year for 11 acres in the middle of Nowhere, KS does seem a bit high, attached missile silo or not.

If I ever get super stupid money rich, I'm gonna buy a decommissioned lighthouse and put it on top of a decommissioned missile silo.

Build & paint,

achievable today!

And then you just tell (or hint) to people that you're rich/eccentric.

Same result?

I'm not exactly sure what result I aim to achieve. Surely not to advertise that I'm rich. It seems to me that wealth would attract metaphorical flies.

Maybe it's just the fun of the thought of placing two similarly shaped cylindrical structures, who both have outlived their utility, one atop the other. An artistic expression.

Another similarity that both structures share is their typical placement is somewhere remote.

There's one of these in New Mexico converted into an airbnb.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/46711243

I’d be so terrified to explore the full extent of that labyrinth even if I owned it fair and square. I watched too many horror movies as a child.

I’ve long dreamed of having one of these for a house! However I think that in reality the house would own me. Most of these missile silos were insulated with asbestos - you can work around that but I think that is well beyond a typical DIY project. Ground water penetration would also be an ongoing concern, you have to be vigilant and deferred maintenance would catch up to you quickly. Any maintenance issues that can’t be resolved internally and require digging down from above would be costly. Typical home warranty probably won’t cover anything.

But for a few years it would be really sweet just the same! Just expect it to be a depreciating asset going in.

Yeah, living in a nuclear silo is one of those things that sound a lot cooler than it really would be.

Gotta watch out for deep crows [1], of course.

[1] https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/10/

It may only have been up on Zillow this time for 4 days, but the streetview shows a real estate sign, so this isn't the first time they've attempted to sell, or it's a resale.

IMO it's priced about $350K too high.

It was listed last March for $420K, and the price was dropped in December. So, going on at least a year that it's been for sale.

Star Trek First Contact has a neat bonus segment about the missile silo they used for filming.

Would love to buy a property like this and convert it to a giant scuba diving facility.

Wish I had the money, datacenter would be easy.

Wouldn’t the water be a problem?

Not if you submerge all the servers in sealed vats of oil

Easy?! Cooling, water intrusion, and access to sufficient bandwidth all seem like nightmares.

It's been done. First offering is usually cold storage.

It's a small underground facility in the middle of nowhere in Kansas -- even assuming that you could get adequate power service and bandwidth to the property (which is unlikely), you're still trying to run a bunch of servers out of a tiny, damp, hot hole in the ground. Not ideal.

Every time I see people proposing to turn a former missile silo into a datacenter, I'd like to ask them to first do the budget on running a geographically diverse ring of singlemode fiber to the nearest mid size city...

Most of them are located in areas with little to no real telecommunications infrastructure.

Have you been to the one in Texas?

I’ve done a couple of deep dives in a flooded silo for my Master Diver certification class. It was a very cool experience with crystal clear water as long as no one disturbed the sediment.

This looks like the 'before' photo for a Bond villain's lair before they move in. It's fascinating that this is for sale at all.

Just throw some luxury vinyl planks and kitchen backsplash in there and it’ll go for $100k over list, all inspections waived.

Check out Command & Control, documentary on the Damascus Titan explosion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_...

If you are ever in Tuscon go check out the TitanII missile museum. It is something else!

How would you deal with radon in something this size

My guess is it wouldn’t be bad - the concrete is probably a lot thicker than your average basement slab.

not convinced. radon levels in Kansas are pretty damn high.

For those of us that aren't in the loop, care to explain? Why would radon be a problem here?

Radon is produced naturally underground in areas near uranium deposits. Most of the time they are in such small amounts that they can be ignored, but Kansas has a lot of Radon, (https://kansasradonprogram.org/county-map). Having such a deep set building would allow more of it to seep in and settle, and it is doubtful that there is any form of radon mitigation system built into the building.

You might get lucky, the 4 ft of concrete might make a nigh impenetrable barrier, but the only way to know would be to test it.

Interesting, Abilene is also Eisenhower’s hometown and the site of his Presidential library and museum. Probably not a coincidence.

That’s going to need some renovation.

Also, I’m certain I’ve seen this for sale before, though I think the price has increased.

"We estimate this home will sell faster than 92 % nearby."

Honestly, this place is going to need a lot of shiplap.

These go up for sale fairly regularly.

Where would one keep an eye out for such things? I like the idea but don't want one in Kansas.

Unfortunately, people tend to build nuke magnets in places that they are fine with nukes landing. Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho...

North Dakota too.

I wonder if your property's coordinates would remain in any old but still-commissioned targetting databases of adversarial nations. Like living under a big red X.

Well, there is a good argument to be made for being in the center of the attack as preferable to the alternative.

My grandfather was in the US army and participated in nuclear weapons testing throughout his later career. He said if war broke out with the Soviets that everyone should go sit on the roof and wait for the mushroom cloud to be sure not to survive.

We should be grateful our ancient ancestors did not share this sentiment when struggling against other extinction level events.

What he said was the truth. That is why it has not happened.

People keep thinking we'll never accidentally send these things.

I can't be the only one that thinks it's inevitable based on the anecdotes.

I always wondered how much targeting of silos occurred. Or at least how they dealt with that.

MAD really seemed to require you unleash everything and generally if the others did you would be targeting a lot of empty silos in the middle of nowhere. At least those in the Midwest.

This was my first thought. If I had a dollar for every time I ran across a database that was horrifically out of date I'd be...getting paid less than I already am

Where I lived after the Cold War the local news world cover imploding missile silos once in a while.

They interviewed the American and Russians (they get to watch) folks at the site.

Young reporter once asked how the Russians could be sure what silo it is if they’re escorted by Americans the whole time.

The American commander paused and said “My Russian counterpart here probably knows this location as well as I do.”

The Russian who previously only used a translator burst out in a smile and belly laugh.

Also North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming.

Not always. The old Nike missile control building in the Santa Monica Mountains would have made for a sweet lair in a pretty good location.

This one?

https://californiathroughmylens.com/san-vicente-mountain-par...

What is the point of nuking something that is one of the only buildings specifically designed to withstand nuclear attacks? It seems kind of wasteful of weaponry to attack something that you cannot destroy. I would definitely take my chances in a nuclear silo in the event of such circumstances; if you are within 50 miles of anywhere that is hit with a modern nuclear weapon you are completely screwed unless you are underground in a structure designed to withstand the megaton winds and incredibly thermal radiance.

Your alternative is not to nuke it, and allow the missile there to destroy one of your cities (or maybe one of your own remote missile sites, but who knows?).

They won't withstand a direct hit. They're hardened but not against that. It would have to be inside a mountain like NORAD.

The plan was always to get them off the ground before most of the enemy missiles hit. And perhaps to withstand a nearby attack, as targeting tech in the 60s was not very accurate yet. But these days that won't work anymore.

Idaho sounds great! Would never ever live in the other two, ofc.

Could I interest you in a Nike missile site? These are a lot closer to large cities since they were defensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nike_missile_sites#Uni...

These people seem to specialize silos

https://www.missilebases.com/

Or an Atlas?

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/atlas-missile-silo-home

Looking at the price history, it looks like they have been trying to sell it for almost 2 years now.

Better the titan ii sites, since they don't appear to have blown up the silo itself.

What kind of maintenance do you think one would need to do on a regular basis?

So many water tightness issues appear to be already present. That thing is awesome, but it's a nightmare.

All depends on what you would consider ‘livable’ conditions. Doesn’t look like it has had maintenance for a while now, but I’m sure you can move in tomorrow.

Also ventilation. Underground spaces can accumulate toxic levels of methane/co2/etc that will incapacitate you before you realize whats happening.

Add Radon gas in much of the soil in the midwest.

a tanker truck of Rustoleum and industrial sump pumps

seriously, though I expect the rebar to be compromised by moisture intrusion

Re asbestos: as long as it is encapsulated or covered over it shouldn't be an issue as a practical matter. I would worry about air quality, water intrusion, etc.

Image 43 seems to imply the missle comes with it. Sounds like a sweet deal for <$400k. Wonder why they felt the need to include that image

>>Facts and features

>>0 bedrooms

>>1 bathroom

Hey, seems nice enough!

If I had a gun for every ace that I have draw, I could arm a town the size of Abilene...

"We estimate this home will sell faster than 94 % nearby."

I wonder about the other 6%...

Though technically listed in Kansas, those properties are actually located in the Emerald City

* missile not included

Reminds me of the documentary Operation Odessa about the characters brokering the deal between a drug cartel and Russia for a submarine to smuggle drugs. “Do you want the missiles too?”

Some ultra-secure crypto storage type outfit might like it.

It would cost $50k just to paint. Every 5 years.

I would imagine it would be an asbestos nightmare

I've taken a non-educated look and you're correct that asbestos is a thing there ([1]). I also found this page that lists additional hazards around Atlas silos ([2]). In short:

- Soil contamination from petroleum chemicals and/or from polychlorinated biphenyls

- Groundwater contamination from trichloroethylene

- "no evidence of radioactive contamination"

Both chemicals (polychlorinated biphenyls and trichloroethylene) are common pollutants in the SF Bay Area, so for many Hacker News readers the silo will feel like home.

1. https://www.mesothelioma.com/states/north-dakota/

2. https://cdphe.colorado.gov/atlas-missile-sites

So much asbestos!

wow.. its almost exactly dead set in the center of the US...

Looks like the sort of place a crypto-bro would blow a few million on.

I wish the trend of selling these things would stop. They should be designated superfund sites. no one should buy them.

- these are 50s era missile silos with limited regulation. youll need full asbestos and lead abatement. some fixtures or objects may not be capable of any abatement at all.

- the fire suppression system likely isnt pendant/water based like a normal home. youre going to need to maintain dry standpipe/halon systems or rip them out and replace them. Halon is toxic and depletes the ozone layer.

- there will be some parts of your home you absolutely will not inhabit and may require a site survey. Expect leftover chromium based chemicals, leaded fuels and lead contaminated chemicals like cosmoline, industrial adhesives and cleaners, and even hydrazine itself.

- youll may need a specialty electrician and plumber every time something goes wrong. HVAC in a silo is a million dollar system designed to cope with thermonuclear war. you will definitely need to replace some or all of it.

- water in silos is common and requires a full time sump system. whatever standing water you encounter will almost certainly be contaminated.

You wish they would stop being sold because they're money pits?

I think the sentiment here is that the government needs to put money toward cleaning up its mess before selling these off to some unsuspecting rube.

>They should be designated superfund sites

Why should they be superfund sites when they don't meet the requirements?

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