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Design and Construction of Deep Underground Basing Facilities for Strategic Missiles Report of a Workshop Conducted by the U.S. National Committee on Tunneling Technology, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council. (1982) / Chapter Skim
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BASING ALTERNATIVES AND TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
Pages 20-26

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From page 20...
... So, the concentration of assets underground was deemed not a good idea. The second objection was that the means of egress depended on there being some portal or portals remaining undamaged; that is, after attack they had to have the same capability as they had before attack, and with the increase in accuracy that was mentioned by Colonel Berry, and the limited number of portals 20
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From page 21...
... Figure 2 illustrates something of what is known about the shock environments at depth introduced by nuclear weapons detonated at the surface. I have suggested a porous rock, perhaps a tuff that we might find at the Nevada test site, and I show depth contours at which one could expect 0.5 kilobar of stress from a large megaton-size weapon (in fact a l00-megaton weapon, which is a larger weapon than presently is in anybody's arsenal)
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From page 22...
... Secondly, we suffer from the fact that the data base that we have, while it is fairly substantial with regard to tamped bursts (i.e., nuclear bursts that are fully contained) , has no relevant data on modern, highyield weapons detonated at the surface of the ground.
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From page 23...
... Over the past years, and most notably since l976, we have tried to address deep underground basing technology in a very systematic and relatively exhaustive fashion, trying to identify which aspects of design, construction and operation were in hand from an engineering point of view, and which, in fact, were technology issues around which we either could not pass or for which proposed solutions simply lacked credibility. In those latter areas is where we have concentrated our resources and efforts.
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From page 24...
... O 1 1 * -- __ft deep silo nstitutable « JS 3 | w a s o § o 3 1 g| £ c: =»)
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From page 26...
... 0 o c o 0) •S L S o= Required T 0xperience Mines; subways; aqueducts; hwy.Er r tunnels; hydro powe plants; NTS UGT complexes; Chicagc storm water sys; NORAD CMCC;site Mines; submarines; hydro power plants underground offices ft factories & ware houses; NORAD; Site R' Submarines, space vehicles Mines; submarines; space vehicles NORAD CMCC; site R; safeguard •o _t 5 I a *
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Key Terms

  • deep underground
  • surface burst
  • underground basing
  • intelligent engineering
  • shock propagation

  • space vehicles
  • tamp data
  • free field
  • weapons detonated
  • burst conditions

  • deep silo
  • admissible deep
  • address deep
  • underground test
  • hard rock

  • vehicles norad
  • hydro power
  • missile force
  • hard layered
  • relevant data

  • basing option
  • basing technology
  • rock site
  • granitic rock
  • nuclear bursts

  • cap rock
  • engineering data
  • engineering profession
  • sufficient data
  • porous rock


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