OCR

Earlier ATLAS sites were completed at Vandenberg AFB, California; Warren AFB, Cheyenne, Wyoming; and Offutt AFB, Omaha, Nebraska. ATLAS "E" sites are located at Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington; Warren AFB, Wyoming; and Forbes AFB, Topeka, Kansas. The following is Atlas "F" Missile Base Construction Comparative Figures: (1) Construction of operational missile sites for the Atlas F silo-housed ICBM, which did not include extensive building of facilities for test and training installations, will provide the nation with six Atlas F bases with the capacity for launching 72 of the missiles (twelve at each of the Atlas F sites). (2) Each Atlas F missile is housed in a silo 174 feet deep and 52 feet in diameter. The missile can be fueled and launched from the top of its silo in approximately 15 minutes or less. (3) Total depth of the operational base Atlas F silos is 12, 528 feet, or almost 2 1/2 miles. These "silos", if used for storage of wheat, could hold five million more bushels than the total grain elevator capacity of the City of Indianapolis. (4) Excavation for Atlas F installation totals 2, 700, 000 cubic yards of earth. This is about the same as digging an irrigation trench 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep for a distance of 138 miles. It also represents a volume greater than that of the Stone Canyon Dam in California. (5) Concrete placed in the Atlas F program totals 565,000 cubic yards, approximately enough to build the Sutton Dam in Wen Virginia. It would be sufficient material for a sidewalk four feet wide, three inches deep and 2,900 miles long, almost the distance between CEBMCO in Los Angeles and the Atlas F site in Plattsburgh, New York. It would also build a road 20 feet wide and six inches thick for 290 miles, the distance between Chicago and St. Louis. (6) Approximately 20, 000 tons of structural steel and 76, 300 tons of reinforcing steel are used in all Atlas F bases. This amount of steel would make about 120, 000 automobiles. (7) Quick-opening doors for each of the missile silos weigh 140 tons apiece, or the equivalent of about 90 automobiles. Counterweights for the silo elevators weigh 208 tons each.