Kind: captions
Language: en
[Applause]
during the cold war the u.s and the
soviet union
had to build underground silos to house
nuclear missiles that could be launched
at a few minutes notice
now one of the technical challenges they
had to overcome that you might not think
of
is acoustics launching a missile in such
confined
silo generates a loud sound so loud that
it would have shaken apart the missiles
before they could even launch
so the walls of the inside of the silo
had to be covered
in acoustically absorbent tiles very
similar to
those in the world's quietest room but
after all of the technical challenges
were
sorted what i wanted to know was how
could they have launched these missiles
very quickly if needed but also never
by accident so i visited one of these
titan missile silos in the arizona
desert to find out exactly what it would
have taken
to launch a nuclear missile
well derek this is level two of the silo
we're
down some 10 meters below the surface
now
and this is the launch duct
and that is titan ii the largest
and most powerful missile weapon system
ever deployed
by the united states well what kind of
bomb is in there that is a thermonuclear
bomb
it's a nine megaton weapon compared to
hiroshima
oh call it 650 times
an enormously powerful weapon and what
was the idea with it
the idea behind titan ii was to instill
enough fear in the mind of the enemy
to cause them to think twice about
launching an attack against us knowing
that
10 meters below the desert in our
fortified concrete bunker we can ride
out
their first strike and live to retaliate
if we're forced to do that
the consequences for the enemy would be
so unspeakably horrible that
maybe they would prefer not to get into
it with us in the first place that's
the essence of deterrence this missile
is no longer active but the launch
system
is preserved and i wanted an insight
into how it felt
to control this incredible power
can we go launch one i thought you'd
never ask
there were 54 of these silos each one
staffed 24 hours a day
7 days a week ready to launch their
missiles on the exclusive order
of the president of the united states
all right then
have a seat here commander thank you
so this is control center this is where
the crew waited to watch the missile
and how do we know that we need to
launch
so we're going to write down every
letter and number that we hear in a form
in this notebook
i'm going to write it down in this
notebook we'll compare each other's work
if we agree that we've copied the
message correctly
then we have what's called a valid
message and authorization take our lock
off the big red save you know your
combination i know mine we don't know
each other so we both have to agree to
get inside
inside we find authenticator cards i'll
give those to you
in the secret message they sent us a
seven character code word
we're going to look at the first two
letters of the code word we're going to
find the authenticator that has those
first two letters
if the card here matches the code word
they sent us
then this is a legitimate order to go
that gives us permission to put in our
launch keys i've already put them in for
us
key right here for you commander and for
me there's a key
way over here keys are far enough apart
that not even a long-armed guy like me
can reach them both
keys must be turned within two seconds
of each other and held
are spring-loaded so held for five
seconds to start the launch
that guarantees that two people will be
required to do it you just can't run
back and forth and do what you sell
and last but not least we get the secret
unlock code for the missile
six little wheels each little wheel has
16 letters of the alphabet
nominally 17 million combinations only
one
will operate the missile this is the
fail safe
that prevents an unauthorized or
accidental launch of the missile
so once we have all those things
authentication keys
code we're good to go all set let's do
it give me a countdown three two one
turn keys we'll send this thing on its
way
after you commander three two
one turn keys
and hold okay you may release
that's all there is to it the green
light turns on says launch enable
for all intents and purposes that should
say welcome to world war three
because that's pretty much what it boils
down to when you turn the key you are
committed there is no oops switch
anywhere when the batteries come to full
power the missile will transfer to
internal power meaning
that it is fully independent about that
same time
the silo door starts to slide open
[Music]
it'll slide through a security radar
beam and set off the alarm
that gives us solar soft guidance go
means the internal guidance computer
has full control of the mission in a few
seconds we'll have main
engine start
prevention start will build up thrust
pop the hole down bolts
and off you go into the wild blue
mountain
[Music]
so that's it we've basically just ended
life on earth
as you know it
[Music]
in these silos the titan missiles had a
terrifying purpose
but they were also put to much better
uses minus their warhead of course
for example the voyager spacecraft was
launched into space atop a titan
iii missile and neil armstrong took his
first flight into space
atop a titan ii the exact same missile
that would have delivered
nuclear warheads to the soviet union so
the cold war
didn't only bring us this fear and
potential of mutually assured
destruction
it also made space exploration possible
now i want to say thank you to everyone
for writing in to request this
documentary be played in your area
thanks to you we've managed to get it
broadcast in norway
sweden and the middle east and details
are in the description so check it out
for everyone else uh these the
documentary will be available
online via our broadcasters though there
may be some geo-blocking restrictions
but i'm pretty confident that anyone who
wants to see the documentary will be
able to
uh via those means so i hope you watch
it i hope you enjoy it
it premieres in just a few days in the
u.s that's
july 28th uh 10 p.m eastern 9
central for more details check out links
in the description
i hope you check it out and i really
hope you enjoy it i appreciate so much
your support
it means everything to me so again
thanks for watching
you