6 Billion Dollars for less than 3 days use

[McCandless]

http://gizmodo.com/a-pyramid-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-built-to-track-the-e-1562753133

 

The Safeguard Program was developed in the 1960s to shoot down incoming Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. Built at a cost of 6 billion dollars in Nekoma, North Dakota, the site was a massive complex of missile silos, a giant pyramid-shaped radar system, and dozens of launching silos for surface-to-air missiles tipped with thermonuclear warheads.

However due to both its expense, and concern over its effectiveness and the danger of detonating defensive nuclear warheads over friendly territory, the program was shut down before it was even operational.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Some things look better on paper than they do in the real world.

[Sedalia Dave]

Few people remember the Nike Ajax missile sites that were built around strategic cities and other sites as a point defense system to shoot down Russian bombers. Even fewer knew that the missiles these sites used were tipped with nuclear warheads.

 

Belief was that a single missile could take out multiple aircraft. The fallout from the missiles was considered less of a threat than the damage from a Russian thermo-nuclear bomb

[Cat Brules]

Few people remember the Nike Ajax missile sites that were built around strategic cities and other sites as a point defense system to shoot down Russian bombers. Even fewer knew that the missiles these sites used were tipped with nuclear warheads.

Belief was that a single missile could take out multiple aircraft. The fallout from the missiles was considered less of a threat than the damage from a Russian thermo-nuclear bomb[/quote

 

 

One difference is that these Nike sites stayed operational for some time. We were assigned at one of these sites when I was a child. It was located on a remote island in New York.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Cat, I fondly remember the Nike Ajax and Hercules base at Ft Barry, I think it was... in the Marin Headlands, just north of and above the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Views from up there were beyond spectacular; accordingly, back in the late sixties/ early seventies, it was a favorite place to take a date and park below the radome after a frat party. I won't say any more about that except to mention that the MP's were very considerate, in that they'd approach your parked car slowly, giving you a chance to... well... put things in order... before running you off.

[Cat Brules]

:-) :-)

Different times and opposite ends of the country........

[Sedalia Dave]

I only know about them because we have 3 of the target track pedestals where I work. We no longer use them as originally designed but have added different antennas and transmitters. In our application they will long outlast me and probably me grand kids.

 

South of me there are the remains of the concrete mounts that held a pedestal.

 

IIRC there is a completely restored site on the west coast complete with a inert missile. I'll have to see if I can remember where.

[Noz]

There was the Nike Ajax and the Nike Hercules. I thought the Ajax was HE and the Hercules were nucs.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

There was the Nike Ajax and the Nike Hercules. I thought the Ajax was HE and the Hercules were nucs.

 

I do believe you're correct.

 

And then there was the larger Nike Zeus project that I seem to recall being cancelled by McNamara.

 

Of course, that was the usual topic of discussion while we were parked beneath the radome...