Located a few dozen miles from the Canadian border, the Mickelsen Safeguard Complex was built as an antiballistic missile system to protect North Dakota's Minuteman missiles from enemy attack. The site housed thirty Spartan interceptors missiles designed to shoot down enemy warheads before they reentered the atmosphere. The Mickelsen complex was completed in 1975 but deemed ineffective against rapidly progressing missile technology and deactivated barely six months later.

The Mickelsen complex housed a massive, pyramid-shaped Missile Site Radar (MSR) designed to track incoming enemy missiles. The MSR's outer walls were built of four foot thick concrete and the building was lined with steel plate to protect it from an electromagnetic pulse.

Activated in 1964, the 321st Strategic Missile Wing was the last Minuteman Wing to be deployed. Support equipment was housed in an underground egg-shaped capsule built of steel plate surrounded by reinforced concrete.

Starting in the Truman era the Continuity of Government (COG) program functioned as a means for the continued operation of the civilian government during a nuclear war. In the event of an impending nuclear attach key leaders would be evacuated to these secret, hardened locations. From 1969 to 1992 The Federal Reserve Communication and Records Center (aka Mt. Pony) secretly served as one of these facilities. In addition Mt. Pony's first floor housed massive vaults that held pallets of cash that could be used to replenish the monetary supply in the aftermath of World War III.

If you were part of the Federal Reserve's top echelon you could ride out a nuclear war in the relative comfort of a semi-private bedroom. However the facility had only a few of these rooms and the rest of the staff would "hot bunk" in large communal dormitories.

On alert from 1963 to the mid-1980s the Titan II was the largest Inter-continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) built by the U.S. Capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 10,000 miles the missiles were deactivated and put in storage at the Air Force's "Desert Boneyard"

From 1946 through the 1950s, the United States worked to develop a nuclear powered airplane. Modified jet engines were attached to experimental nuclear reactors. These systems were moved to a remote testing location via a radiation shielded locomotive. The engineer's cab of the locomotive was built with a nearly 4-foot thick observation window.

Developed to protect navy ships from attacking aircraft, surface-to-air missiles like the Terrier underwent extensive testing at the U.S. Navy's China Lake gunnery range.

In the 1950's the Soviet threat came in the form of bombers, not missiles. Over 100 Nike Hercules missile batteries were deployed, many in the north-eastern part of the U.S. where they were intended to defend large citiesand industrial areas. Operating from 1954 to 1974, Nike missile sites were on alert 24-hours a day, manned by Army troops and National Guard Forces. These radar towers were once topped with antennas covered by geodesic domes.

In the 1955 Apple II test and entire mock town was subjected to a nuclear blast to determine the effects on various types of homes and buildings. This "typical American community" as outfitted to simulate reality down to mannequins in the homes and fresh food on the tables.

The Nevada Test Site has been the home of American nuclear weapons testing since 1951 and the site of almost 1,000 nuclear explosions. In 1980 an underground nuclear device was detonated in a test of space-based military equipment. This chamber housed the communications satellite and other equipment over the top of the shaft containing the nuclear device and was then winched out of the way before being swallowed up in the crater caused by the blast.

Starting in the mid-1950s the Nuclear Rocket Development Area (NRDA) was used for experiments aimed at developing nuclear powered rocket motors. The Air Force's Project Pluto was used to test ramjet engines that utilized radioactive material as their heat source.

Dubbed "A Floating Messenger of Peace" the N.S. Savannah was the first, and one of the only, nuclear powered merchant ships ever built. A product of the "Atoms for Peace" program, the Savannah was designed to break down barriers to the peaceful use of nuclear power. The ship was in service from 1959 to 1971.

All of the men who have traveled to the moon departed Earth from Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center. In order to enter their Satern V spacecraft these astronauts had to first traverse the Launch Umbilical Tower which stood nearly 400 feet tall. Following the end of the Apollo program portion of the tower were modified and reused for the Space Shuttle program while the remainder was cut into sections and eventually scraped.