Adjacent to Badlands NP is the Minuteman Missile National Historical Site. Due to our direction of travel, we visited the decommissioned nuclear missile silo site first, and then the visitor center second.
The video in the auditorium, and the exhibits are, let’s say, disturbing. While it is good news that there was prior agreement to reduce the number of nuclear weapons, the fact remains that 450 such silos remain active in the USA, down from a high of 1000. The reason all of this is unsettling, is that technology and human nature beig what they are, the exhibit describes several instances of “close calls” where the world as we know it came very close to destruction, due to human error or technology glitches. At least its good to acknowledge such risks, so that the military and the government can take active measures to mitigate such risks.
