Inside a Decommissioned Nuclear Silo From the Cold War

At the beginning of the Cold War, the US began developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at a rapid pace. Following the US’ first operational ICBM, the SM-65 Atlas, the Titan I went under development in the mid-1950s.

According to the National Park Service, the Titan I missiles were 98 feet tall and could deliver a nuclear warhead over 6,000 miles.

Eighteen silos, like Halik’s and the one pictured, were built across the US to house these missiles during the Cold War.

Thanks to the silo’s use of diesel fuel, it had the ability to stay running without being connected to the electrical grid. The amount of fuel in the silo was enough to fuel around 2,000 houses for roughly 2 weeks.

Just one of the silo’s three diesel tanks has the capacity to hold about 50,000 gallons of fuel, Halik told Business Insider.

In all, 54 Titan I missiles were operational between April 1962 and January 1965, according to the National Park Service.

Despite the impressive stature of the Titan I silos, they proved to be short-lived. All were removed by early 1965, becoming obsolete due to rapid technological developments that led to the Titan II and Minuteman I ICBMs.

In the years that followed, the US government removed valuable materials from the silos and sold off most of the facilities to public and private owners. Halik said after his bunker was decommissioned, it was used by government defense contractors and The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Halik, with help from others, has been renovating the facility, located in a top-secret location in Colorado, for over four years.

Aside from the facility’s rusty metal scraps and loose wires, other hidden dangers lurk throughout the complex. The basement level, Halik said, is riddled with cyanide, lead paint, mercury, and asbestos.

He’s documented every step of his journey in the facility on the YouTube channel Nuclear Bunker Living. The first episode, uploaded in September 2021, shows him exploring the bunker by himself for the first time.

As Halik’s videos show, he often jumps into the exploration and renovation headfirst, despite the safety risk. On one occasion, he crawled through a rusty pipe, only to realize later that it had a live wire running through it that he said could’ve electrocuted him instantly.

“There are so many variables of danger here,” Halik said in a video. “This place is unforgiving, and it always reciprocates with interest.”

The silo descends 165 feet below the surface, deep enough to house the missiles and the equipment necessary to launch them.

Different launcher rooms, control domes, a power dome, and other areas make the facility a sprawling complex.

One portion of the facility was built by what Halik called “Hoover Dam-type engineering.” Featuring multiple layers of steel-reinforced concrete, each square inch of the wall could withstand roughly 15,000 pounds of pressure.

The control room was where the missile operators would have pressed the fateful buttons to launch missiles that were 300 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

“The fate of the Western world was in the hands of these 21- to 22-year-olds who had the keys to the missiles, ready to employ them on the instructions of the Pentagon from the president,” Halik said.

Many relics still remain in the control room and other areas, including pieces of the desk where a launch would’ve been programmed.

Recently, Halik and his team discovered papers containing launch codes, times, and other protocols.

In another room, Halik envisions a nightclub, complete with a DJ, bar, consumption lounges, and Cirque du Soleil dancers.

At a different decommissioned missile site in New Mexico, this vision may already be a reality. The Twistflower Nuclear Missile Silo in Roswell will host the ATOMIKA festival in November.

The festival, promoted by Halik, describes itself as an “experimental, annual gathering that fuses immersive art, deep inquiry, and powerful music.”

Since AI requires large amounts of power, as well as a safe and reliable space for data, underground locations like Halik’s facility could prove to be prime locations.

A critical factor is the bunker’s cool temperature of 52 degrees Fahrenheit, even during the summer, which is optimal for the interior of a data center to prevent servers from overheating.

At some data centers, it can take more than 30% of a facility’s electricity to keep servers cool, the Pew Research Center reported.

“AI needs power,” Halik said. “AI needs safe environments to basically have all their computational processing power.”

Halik said that to power the data center, he would swap the facility’s diesel infrastructure with small nuclear reactors in an attempt to avoid the hassles of refueling.

Although Halik didn’t disclose the specific companies interested, it aligns with a growing trend of underground data centers becoming more commonplace.

One company, called Iron Mountain, utilizes a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania for data processing and storage. The 220-foot-deep facility stretches 40 acres, about nine times the size of Halik’s bunker.