1963 ... Titan underground ICBM base.

... this snapshot gives some idea to the scale of the construction. Like most people I imagined that they somehow tunneled out all that underground acreage. Instead they just dug a really big deep hole, built everything and then covered it over!

... looking up at Titan ICBM in it's hardened concrete underground 'silo'. Titans, like their Atlas predecessors, were fueled with liquid oxygen and super duper kerosene and so were very cantankerous. More than once they went 'postal' and blew up inside their silos. While we all watched fuzzy black and white TV of Cape Canaveral launching a single, astronaut carrying rocket, the Air force was maintaining a fleet of rockets in underground catacombs!

... emergency escape hatch in Titan ICBM underground complex. Right above the hatch is several tons of gravel filling a portion of the long tube to the surface. The gravel is shielding against blast and radiation. A.Pull the release handle B.jump back quickly C.wait for gravel and prairie dogs to pour through D.climb up long ladder to charred radioactive surface.