Looking down from the launcher doors onto the rocket cradle of an Atlas D ICBM. The Atlas missile system was designed and built in parallel to the Titan 1 ICBM’s in the early 1960s. However, their purpose wasn’t always quite so nefarious. Prior to their use as a weapons delivery system, the rockets were involved in the Gemini project that put the first Americans in space. For this reason, these missiles have a special interest to myself.
The massive network of missiles had an equally short lifespan, deployed from 1959 to 1965 when the rockets were decommissioned and stored for use as launch vehicles for satellites.