America's Secret Underground Ice Fortresses 134
Hugh Pickens writes "With the advent of long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles in the 1950s, it was inevitable that military attention would be drawn to remote but strategic arctic regions. Now Defense Tech reports on Project Iceworm — America's secret cold war plan to build a network of underground missile bases under the Greenland ice cap capable of launching 'Iceman' ICBM missiles at Russia. The first base, 'Camp Century,' built 800 miles from the North Pole, contained 21 steel-arch covered trenches; the longest of which was 1,100-feet long, 26-feet wide and 26-feet high. The massive base, constructed to house 200 troops, was officially built to conduct scientific research. But the real reason was apparently to test out the feasibility of burying nuclear missiles below the ice, since Greenland is so much closer to Russia than the ICBM fields located in the continental U.S. If fully implemented, the project would cover an area of 52,000 square miles with clusters of missile launch centers spaced four miles apart. New tunnels were to be dug every year, so that after 5 years there would be thousands of firing positions, among which the several hundred missiles could be rotated. Camp Century was powered by a portable nuclear power plant designated PM-2A, the first of the U.S. Army's portable reactors to actually produce power, and was rated at two megawatts of electrical power, also supplying steam to operate the well that provided water for the troops. The Army team assembled the prefabricated reactor in 77 days, and just nine hours after fuel elements containing forty-three pounds of enriched Uranium-235 were inserted into the reactor, electricity was produced. Maintaining the tunnels at Camp Century required time-consuming and laborious trimming and removal of more than 120 tons of snow and ice each month. The camp, begun in 1959, was abandoned for good in 1966 and it is anticipated that the Greenland icecap, in constant motion, will completely destroy all the tunnels over the course of the coming years."
Truth, fiction, stranger than (Score:5, Funny)
I must admit, the first thought that came to my mind when reading this is, this sounds like a great setting for some spy thriller or such. I mean, an abandoned military base with launch silos, its own nuclear power, and slowly being destroyed by encroaching ice?
The perfect location to have the mastermind's base located in. At the end, the heroes have to race out of the base as it is finally being destroyed by the ice.
Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream? (Score:5, Funny)
Inconceivable (Score:5, Funny)
friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless! Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed, in Greenland? - Vizzini
I understand Fezzik so much better now.
Re:cool (Score:4, Funny)
Or a bunch of rebels. ;)
Hoth Base (Score:0, Funny)
I saw a documentary on this, with ice tunnels, mobile reactors and power generators, secret ice bases... Oh yes, the Empire Strikes Back
But I didn't know the U.S.S.R. had giant four-legged robot death-machines.
Re:cool (Score:5, Funny)
I always wondered why it was called the Cold War (Score:4, Funny)
Project Iceworm - America's secret cold war plan to build a network of underground missile bases under the Greenland ice cap
Now I know.
Re:Truth, fiction, stranger than (Score:4, Funny)
You can defeat cold air by burning books in an old fireplace that has been sealed up for 70 years.
Butter kills more people than guns. (Score:2, Funny)
In the USA, butter kills more people than guns.
Typical annual deaths from heart disease and diabetes: 665,000
Typical annual deaths from guns: 30,000 (Includes justifiable homicide, murder, suicide, accidents)
You know what that means: SAVE AMERICA! BAN BUTTER NOW!