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Titan Missile Complex Up for Sale
ckeck writes "Take a look at this, some guy in Washington State is auctioning off a 'Titan Missile Complex' on eBay. I don't know if this is a fake auction or not, but I already talked to the gentleman running the auction on the phone and plan to take a visit to the complex! This would be an awesome place to live! Check it out here." Looks like he bought it in 1999.
you've always been able to buy missile silo's on the internet.
for-ever. since day one.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
If every slashdotter pitched in a little cash, we could form a /. retreat or something
According to the 1999 article, the original asking price was $300,000. The guy who bought it is asking $3,500,000. That's a bit of a markup, there.
It makes sense if he put a lot of money and time into renovating it; that's probably the case if there's someone currently occupying the property. (Which the auction hints at.)
In the UK The Bunker is an old nuclear shelter turned into a secure webhosting facility.
The guy who owns it wrote 'Stay Another Day' performed by East 17 and was a UK Christmas #1.
Fact.
No. This isn't about football.
if someone actually buys that place for $4M, the newspaper article suggests that he paid $300k originally, granted he has made some improvements to the place but are those changes really worth $3,7M
I would love to work in a data store facility such as this! Just the kitsch value alone would get me to move across the country to do so.
:D
If anyone wants to turn this into a secure data warehouse, a needs a few good men- gimme a shout!!!
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Forget mapping it, actually play in it! That complex is just screaming out to be used as a paintball/laser tag arena. Imagine the orange warning lights spinning around and a computerised female voice 'Thirty seconds till missile launch' over the sound system.
Hell, with the strength of the pound against the dollar even I might buy it! $3,950,000 that's like, what, 2 grand of my money? (just getting one back for the Canadians)
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
But picture turning the top floor of the launch silo into a solarium. Remove the blast door and replace it with glass (it would probably have to be bulletproof to withstand the downward force from the snow in the winter). A little bit of remodeling and you have a perfect place to lie back and watch the sky).
If it's far enough away from civilization, you could also use the solarium for a decent telescope.
When the government was decomissioning its Titan missile program in the 1990s, it sold off a number of properties like this. For example, also in the Eastern Washington area, some private investors bought the former Titan facilities located above ground and are running it as an ultra-secure data center facility [titanone.com]. The owner group includes a couple of former Microsoft execs. (Insert your favorite security joke here.)
A few months ago 2 guys were busted for being the major suppliers in all of usa of LSD, they were responsible for like 30% of all sales.
Their whole lab as in a disused silo facility. Totally sealed, no way in.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
A school friend of mine got his silo in kansas for 100$ a month lease, for 100 years from a farmer in kansas. With the only restriction of allowing the farmer room to park his tractor inside in the winter.
The problem with these, is you do have to heat them, and keep the humidity down. With a constant wall temp, you better be able to afford a big humidifier, or just build a house inside. My friend just build his own walls inside, cleaned it up etc.
Its so quiet and dark in the night, you wouldnt even hear a tornado if it went overhead right on top of you.
I don't know if that's really a fair representation except to understand the scale of some of the areas. Remember, the auction here says there is "NO WATER SEEPAGE!" meaning that this silo is probably kept up much better, and doesn't have the dangerous flooding.
$4,000,000 is awfully expensive though. The ideal use for one of these things is for a group of people to pitch in and share the space; to limit the investment to $100,000 each, you'd have to share it with 40 buyers. It would probably work OK, but 10 buyers/families would be better in my opinion.
...
Some links for the interested:
A real estate agent specializing in Missile Bases
A virtual tour made by some tresspassers.
I was fascinated about the chance to own one of these properties. Doing some research, I found some ceveats though. First, the base had to be de-commissioned prior to 1965. After that, there were new treaties which required the complete destruction of the base after de-militarization. Second, being underground can lead to some health hazards, i.e. Radon. Third, missile bases aren't ever located in easy to reach places, and I like to be able to go to the store without a bunch of planning beforehand.
I'd still love to own this monstrosity though. The Titan 1 sites are the most elaborate and extensive. Kind of makes me sick to think about the money spent of this thing when it was built only to be decomissioned ~5 years later.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
Except you'd be suprised how often they forget to demill stuff before selling it. Like the F-18 that went up for sale a while ago, due to a paperwork messup it wasn't classified as needing to be demilled so the mainspar wasn't cut. There was also the nuclear diffusion plant whos equipment was sold as scrap without being cut up (the new owner tried to sell it to the Israeli's before the CIA knocked on his door, his comment was that at least he didn't try to sell it to Iran). There are tons of other lesser examples all the time.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The most extensive Nike bases I've seen: SF-88 and one of its sister sites in the Presidio of SF, had an above-ground radome or two, an above-ground launching area, and a small below-ground bunker - more of a garage, really - for storing the Nike missiles. The bunkers were not hardened; their purpose was to protect the surrounding area if one of the missiles exploded in storage.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
Remove the blast door and replace it with glass (it would probably have to be bulletproof to withstand the downward force from the snow in the winter).
Growing up Eastern Washington, I can say that you probably would need bulletproof glass, but not for the snow (it doesn't snow much at all at this missile site). Rather, you'd need bulletproof glass to keep the bullets out.
There's an astronomical observatory about an hour's drive from this silo. It has heavy steel shutters on the windows. The shutters are not there to keep the stray light away from the telescope --- but rather to keep the bullets out.
Eastern Washington has many charms, but it also has a robust population of people with guns. A noticable minority of these folks are remarkably generous in their application of these weapons.