![]() Pumped and dry today, the living room sports trappings that would make Dr. Peyden notes that the complex flooded with rainwater after abandonment in 1965 and says he first explored it, in 1984, with a flashlight and a canoe. "The keys are imagination and creativity," Mr. A television aerial runs up to an old above-ground military communications antenna. ![]() The quarters for the underground crew, at the end of the steel-reinforced tunnel, were so large that the Peydens needed only a third of the space to create their split-level, with four bedrooms and two baths. Above ground, the 1,200-foot runway built to ferry in emergency supplies in the event of a nuclear war is now used by pilots who test-fly Mr. Three pink bicycles belonging to his two daughters, Heather and Ashley, are parked casually, along with a lawn mower, by a $2 million tank that once held liquid oxygen fuel for the intercontinental missile.Īnd in the huge concrete bay that once held a state-of-the-art rocket, there is now a clutter of wooden propellers, fiberglass cockpits and aluminum wings for Mr. "I am amazed that a private citizen of my means could own a property like this." Peyden, noting that he paid $40,000 to a salvage company in 1984 for an installation that cost American taxpayers $4 million in 1959. It is in one of these old Atlas silos that the Peydens have made their home, creating an atmosphere that is downright cozy despite a 47-ton garage door - formerly the door to the silo's missile bay - that can be opened only with a hand crank. Arkin of the nuclear warhead survey published in The Bulletin. "Atlas silos are like dinosaurs - archeological remains of the nuclear age," said Robert S. ![]() In Holton, 30 miles north of here, 150 children now take classes in a decommissioned Atlas silo, owned by the Jackson Heights School District. Atlas and Titan silos were then sold, for just $1 apiece, to school districts, farmers and salvage companies. In contrast to the new treaty requirements, though, the United States Air Force simply abandoned scores of Atlas-E, Atlas-F and Titan I silos during the mid-1960's, when technological advances made them obsolete. By the end of next year, all of Whiteman's 150 missile silos are to be destroyed. Perry and Russia's Defense Minister, Pavel S. Pushing the buttons were Secretary of Defense William J. Peyden: modern missile-control treaties call for destroying newly decommissioned silos, a requirement that drew world attention on Saturday when a Minuteman II silo was blown up in a cornfield near Whiteman Air Force Base, 75 miles east of here. With the Northeast now entirely free of nuclear weapons, warheads remain only in 17 states, all in the South and the West.īut the new environment poses a drawback to real-estate visionaries like Mr. ![]() Indeed, since 1992 nuclear weapons have been completely removed from Kansas and eight other states: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey and New York. To the casual observer, the 1990's would appear to be a boom time for recycling nuclear silos: the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the United States has dropped to about 9,000 today, from a peak of 24,000 a decade ago, according to a study published in the November issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In his new role as silo salesman, the 48-year-old former high school teacher now fields calls from people interested in buying these "sleepers" for post-cold-war uses: as a soundproof recording studio, perhaps, or as a secure vault for bank records, a dark place to raise gourmet snails or mushrooms, or a humidity-controlled cellar for wine. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |