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Titan II ICBM, Lauch Complex 571-7, Sahuarita, AZ, 2009.
All the pixels, none of the retaliatory strikes, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4182507708
Captured with a DSLR and a Zeiss 21mm Distagon lens. Handheld (there was no room to set up a tripod).
In 2009, I was fortunate to join a "top to bottom" tour of former Air Force Titan ICBM site 571-7, now preserved as a museum. Titan II missiles carried a nine megaton(!) "physics package" in the "reentry vehicle" (which they emphatically assured me had been removed from this missile, but I still wouldn't advise upsetting them too much).
More ICBM photos and discussion here: https://www.mattblaze.org/blog/titans/
@mattblaze Yowzer. I've read about that before but it's usually just facts & figures about the distances, blast radius, expected casualties etc. Your piece adds the humanity that was present at the time, and that's pretty hair raising (not that I have much!).
I lived through the last 20 years of the Cold War. What a mad thing it was - total distrust of the "other side", it's a wonder we didn't end up in a nuclear winter.
(See also BBC's "Threads", utterly terrifying yet compelling viewing).
@greem It is utterly miraculous that we didn't all blow everything up.
@mattblaze we came so close during Able Archer in 83 (I think!) and were only saved by a very brave Soviet man who refused to believe that the traces he was seeing were real.
I know you know this, but by crikey we were literal seconds from nuclear Armageddon and one man's intransigence pretty much saved the entire world as we knew it.
Like I said, what a mad time that was!