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ICBM silo and air park for sale

David Pescovitz at 12:18 pm Thu, Dec 15, 2011

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Missilesilo

Please note that as soon as Dean approves the capital expense, Happy Mutants World Headquarters will move from our unmarked island to this Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silo and air park now for sale in New York's Adirondacks. The new list price is just $750,000! From Sotheby's:

 51O 0508 The Atlas-F missile sites were activated in 1961, and after a short operational period, were decommissioned in 1965. These sites were the first of the "super hardened" missile silos, built to withstand a 200 pound per square inch blast. Atlas F (structure only) construction costs range from $14 million to $18 million dollars each in 1960’s dollars. Today that would equate to nearly $140 million dollars using a Consumer Price Index (CPI) calculator to adjust for inflation.

The missile silo is a huge structure 52 ft. inside diameter and approximately 176 feet deep. Access is from a 40 foot tunnel with 3 blast doors leading from the Launch Control Center (LCC). The Missile Silo has 2 overhead 90 ton doors that can often be reopened. There were originally 7 floor levels inside the silo, however app, 2/3 of the F silos have been salvaged out and only bare walls remain. Multiple levels could be rebuilt in the silo. A deck built in the silo would provide almost 2,000 sq. ft. of floor-space.

"Adirondack Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silo air park Saranac, NY" (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)

 
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David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • Martijn

    This looks awesome! I’d love to buy it if I had the money and it wasn’t located in the US.

  • PhosPhorious

    What’s the zombie rating on this thing?

    • http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

      It seems like the perfect spot to fight off the Zombie Apocalypse.

      • PhosPhorious

        Depends on the kind of zombie.  The shamblers from “Night of the Living Dead” maybe. . .  but the cagey ones from “I am Legend”?  Maybe not.

        There really ought to be official ratings.

        • waetherman

          I smell an infographic coming in 3…2…1…

        • LeSinge

          You mean the vampires from I am Legend? 

        • Gaucho85

          Those weren’t zombies in “I am Legend”. Even still, this would be a great place to make a last stand.

      • Brainspore

        Just be sure to have plenty of diesel fuel on hand for the generators; that place is programmed to blow itself up in the event of total power failure.

  • Utenzil

    You’ll not only survive, you’ll thrive in this fabulous blast-hardened underground-o-minium!

  • Matthew Elmslie

    Let me break it down for you. Don’t go into Power Dome B.

  • Andy

    The link doesn’t work, did SOPA pass already?

  • awjt

    They’re being boinged.  Just check back tomorrow.
    A place like that would be incredibly cool to live in and remodel.  Even if you didn’t turn the silo into floor space, you could clean it out and have a mega wine cellar.  Or art space.  Or anything you want.  Someday…

  • http://www.disoriented.net/ angusm

    “The Missile Silo has 2 overhead 90 ton doors that can often be reopened.”

    Is it just me, or is there something ominous about the use of the word ‘often’? And would this slight uncertainty about opening apply to any of the other massive blast-resistant doors that constitute the only means of egress from your new $750,000 concrete-lined bijou deathtrap residence?

    • acidrain69

      Just bring your sawzall everywhere with you; it’ll be fine.

    • Guysmiley

      To be fair, the silo “roof” doors are very large and very heavy. They don’t want to promise they’ll work when it may require a lot of time/money to get them operational. The man-sized doors are nowhere near as massive and complex as the silo doors.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        I know a guy who owns a rotating house. That fancy stuff takes a lot of maintenance.

    • Lobster

      Also the silo doors are used for the egress of missiles, not people.

      • Martijn

        Although with a house like this, it could be socially acceptable to have an ejection system for unwanted guests.

        • Lobster

          I think once you live in a nuclear missile silo just about anything you do becomes socially acceptable.  People are a lot more permissive when they think you’re 10 seconds away from going all War Games on them.

    • eyebeam

       Replace doors with geodesic glass dome; start tropical greenhouse in silo.

      • Eric …

        that would compromise said zombie refuge…

  • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

    Has this place even ever had an occupant after the remodel? I remember seeing it on the market at least ten years ago.

    • acidrain69

      I remember seeing it for a lot more than this price. If it halves a few more times, I’ll pick it up. 10% of current offering would be perfect.

      • Lobster

        10% of current offering would cost less than my 1 bed/1 bath bungalow, and it’s only hardened against chemical and biological attacks.

  • Groove Stomp

    Awesome!  Less than the cost of a house in Vancouver!

  • kajiiata

    I’ve wanted this place for years!  Back in pre-recession times, it was nearly 3 million if memory serves.  I used to fantasize about winning the lottery and retiring to my secret headquarters in the Adirondacks. 

  • dmatos

    Now with better links:

    http://www.silohome.com/

  • awjt

    It’s near Plattsburgh NY.  It’s remote.  Like wayyyy remote.  I live up near there, in VT, and there aren’t any jobs here.  If you already have millions, you have no worries and are probably buying nice properties on the ocean in warm cheap places like the Caribbean, not expensive missile silos in the middle of nowhere New England.

    And if you already own a missile silo in the middle of the Dacs, you probably maxed out your credit cards to finance the remodel and are laid off now and need to sell that damn albatross.

    OK, my big missile silo fantasy is over now.  Oh well.

    (oh, and I can already see the reply: “Upstate New York ISN’T NEW ENGLAND!” pffff. Tell that to the plaid shirted cheddar cheese maple syrup eating yahoos with mufflerless Subarus.)

    • http://twitter.com/mtmole Mr. Mole

      Hey!  I’m a plaid shirted cheddar cheese maple syrup eating yahoo from Upstate NY.  Don’t be hatin’.  And, yes, the muffler on my Echo is starting to fail.

      • awjt

        Oh yeah, echos too :)  We like to drive shit cans up here because the roads just beat them to hell anyways

  • pablohoney

    Sounds like an awesome set for a porno. Silo? Missiles? Use your imagination on that one. 

  • Bubba73

    Needs more frickin’ lasers

    • Mark Dow

      And steam powered blast doors.

  • rtresco

    Buyer beware. There’s that old saying amongst silo owners – the 2 happiest days of your life as a silo owner are the day you buy it, and the day you sell it.

    • Lobster

      Or the day you buy it and the day the world ends in a hurricane of nuclear fire!

      Though… I guess you wouldn’t really be HAPPY on that day.  You’d be thankful you thought ahead, sure, but it’d probably be a pretty sad day in general.

  • http://twitter.com/philnorman Phil Norman

    If this was the cold war, we could keep each other warm.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvCeCVmJAUA

  • Andrew Pierce

    Silos are incredibly dangerous, and have an unfortunate tendency to explode. Oh, wait, this is a missile silo, not a grain silo? Should be fine.

  • Mister44

    I want.

  • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

    The latest Judge John Hodgman podcast featured a couple who may be quite interested in this, as an alternative to their plans for fortifying the local Walmart against post-apocalyptic marauders.

  • thaum

    What? ICBM not included? 

    I am disappoint.

  • http://www.xradiograph.com/ OtherMichael

    This is a STEAL — a few years ago, it was going for more than twice the current price.

    Okay, maybe not “going for” — they were asking for more than twice the current price.

    I still want it.

    And still can’t afford it.

  • http://maggiekb.com/ Maggie Koerth-Baker

    Sweet! I call top bunk! 

  • http://deansli.st/ Dean Putney

    APPROVED. WHERE’S MY RED RUBBER STAMP. I’M GOING TO START PACKING MY STUFF.

  • Green Ghost

    How many can it house after the inevitable collapse of society? If we all chip in we can save ourselves a spot . Although there should be a compatibility test I suppose. Who shale we eliminate?

    • Brainspore

      How many can it house after the inevitable collapse of society?

      The first two who show up. Just like any survival shelter with limited supplies and a lockable door.

  • Roy Trumbull

    We went from liquid fuel to solid fuel missiles. Liquid had a long countdown. The Russians were stuck with liquid for a long time. If solid fuel had a crack instead of a launch you’d have a massive explosion. I don’t know what the lifetime of a solid fuel pack was or how many you could expect to work after so many years in a silo. I did hear that after a failed static test pieces of the missile were found embedded in trees many miles away.
    I had applied for a job at a static test site but the position got pulled. Two years later I read a newspaper account of how many died at the very place I would have worked. Took several days to shake the chill.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QZLVTMNIPDVPOGSCTZ5P7GKK6E p!ssirk

    So the abandoned Mickey Rat theme park in China is out?

  • Daen de Leon

    Here’s hoping it’s been deleted from the Russian ICBM targeting database … Or is that something the real estate agent deals with these days?

    • Donald Petersen

      Now there’s an unusual clause in your Prudential policy…

  • http://www.iandicomputing.com Clifton

    Watch out for Deep Crows.

  • sockdoll

    Great place to house a Stargate.

  • obeyken

    If i could get up on one toe in ballet shoes, would that be like a 200 pound per square inch blast?

  • ackpht

    The scary part is, with mortgage rates so low, I could almost afford that. Bit of a commute from SF though…

  • Joe Rodgers

    Wait- these things were in operation for all of  four years? total?

    I’m amazed at the chutzpah.

    • Christopher Miller

      There was a lot of chutzpah in the Cold War.

  • hobomike

    I wish I was a mole in the ground…
    http://youtu.be/7hTZk1vEuBE

    Ok, not really. I prefer to be vaporized with the rest of the people and things I care about.

  • pjcamp

    Can OFTEN be reopened? You mean sometimes they can’t?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IH3CQ7VQW6OVWD2OW367WYETXU William

    Any lingering radiation from the former resident?

  • http://www.aculei.net/~eredien/ CP-S

    Timeshare anyone?

  • http://twitter.com/VagabondAstro Robert Little

    I’m looking at those stairs, and you know what I’m thinking? Yeah, baby; Super Ball.

    • Donald Petersen

      Or truly epic Slinky races.

  • anharmyenone

    It’s like the first Andromeda Strain movie. Just put a USDA sign out front and secret broom-closet elevator to go down to the lower levels, but be sure to remove the red flashing Pokemon lights.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      It’s like the first Andromeda Strain movie. Just put a USDA sign out front and secret broom-closet elevator to go down to the lower levels, but be sure to remove the red flashing Pokemon lights.

      What’s that joke? A drunk, a baby and an asphyxiating monkey walk into an underground silo…

  • CognitiveDissident

    Hate to be a crepe-hanger, but this is the perfect habitat for Resident Evil zombies.

    (You’ll be sitting by the fireplace in the lower level, and the warm brain smell will waft up through the vents.)

    I’ll pass.

  • penguinchris

    I always wonder: how many of these silos are currently still in use by the government for ultra-super-double-dog-top-secret stuff?