How Nuclear Missile Crews Eat, Sleep and Live 60 Feet Underground

Right now, somewhere under the American prairie, two Air Force officers are starting a 24-hour shift in a steel capsule a few steps from the keys to ten nuclear missiles. How do they eat, sleep and use the bathroom down there? Why is sleeping forbidden when the blast door is open? Why did one crew paint their blast door like a pizza box? And what is the hidden danger missileers only recently got answers about? Chapters: 0:00 Two people, ten nuclear missiles, one strange day 0:51 The commute to a hidden launch site 1:39 The house on top: chef, guards and a manager 2:26 Going down: the blast door and the capsule 3:11 What's for dinner 60 feet underground 4:15 The bathroom 4:38 One bed for two: how they sleep 5:36 Checklists, boredom and bunny slippers 6:40 Life after the shift 7:28 The pizza box blast door 8:11 The hidden danger: PCBs and cancer 9:21 Tonight, 60 feet down FOOTAGE & PHOTO CREDITS Video: U.S. Department of Defense / DVIDS (public domain) — U.S. Air Force footage from Malmstrom, Minot and F.E. Warren Air Force Bases. Photos: U.S. Air Force, National Park Service (Minuteman Missile National Historic Site) and Historic American Engineering Record / Library of Congress (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons. "World-wide delivery in 30 minutes or less" blast door photo — Richardw, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Photos cropped and animated. Some scenes are AI-generated illustrations. Narration: synthetic voice. Independent and educational. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense. Sources: NPR (pizza from a nuclear command bunker, 2014); Marie Claire (women missileers); Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Security Science; National Park Service (Delta-01, missile cook); Minot AFB (missile alert facility manager); AP/IBTimes (blast door rule, 2013); Daily Montanan (Malmstrom PCB testing, 2023); Air & Space Forces Magazine (Missile Community Cancer Study); KFF Health News. #missileers #howitworks #coldwar