Minuteman Weapon System History and Description (2001) [pdf] (opens in new tab)

How many decades of well known mutually assured destruction would you consider adequate to release this information?

Not exactly a new system, surely has been inspected many times by all major nuclear powers over the years.

I guess… Why wouldn’t it be? At some point why would you keep it classified?

Funnily enough I’m just reading a book on Draper Labs and there’s a huge amount of detail on old inertial guidance systems.

It's lacking in information of real military value, e.g. accuracy, failure rate, effectiveness of countermeasures, precise alloys used, etc. It's basically a description of a rocket, which probably isn't a surprise to other nations who are themselves building rockets.

We want to make sure people believe in the deterrent. If people start to think they could take out all of our nukes somehow that would be dangerous.

Maybe they know the information has already been compromised.

Also what kind of a deterrence is this if the enemy doesn’t know about it?

It might be part of a disinformation campaign- a mostly correct document that includes some intentional inaccuracies or falsehoods.

> What is the benefit?

Sticking to our principles

>The MGS is an inertial guidance system which directs the flight of the missile. The guidance system operates continuously while the missile is in alert status, thus enabling the missile to be launched in less than one minute.

I wonder how often the missile is in alert status? Presumably regular testing?

For those just skimming the guidance system info (for Minuteman III) starts on page 49. Looks like they miniaturized it some and that giant moon lander backplane seems to be substantially reduced?

Amazing pics, thanks for sharing!

Good ole' Autonetics.

BTW you can see some of these at the Air and Space Museum in DC, and a smaller set at the Computer Science Museum in ... Palo Alto? Mountain View? (that area)

These are great, how did you come across / where did you get them?

On the guidance side, "Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance" is awesome.

And on the policy side:

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg

Genuine page turner.

Wasn’t that Chris rock in his bit about O.J.?

What?

What I know about re-entry is that while out of the atmosphere it was using star charts to determine location.

My favorite fact is that the hard drive also acted as the clock. Each rotation grabbed the program codes from the disk to execute them.

What do you mean, the warhead (the reentry body) or the last stage? Because the warhead is passive.

There’s also a Nike site across the Golden Gate Bridge from SF.

It's very interesting. I think you have to book ahead for a tour these days.