14 October – Tucson

In the morning we headed out to the Mission San Xavier del Bac. The mission was founded in 1692 and the current church was begun in 1783 by a Franciscan priest by borrowing money from a local rancher and construction stopped 14 years later leaving the building unfinished – missing a bell tower and with some of the interior paintings not completed. Many of the builders and artists who worked on it were from Mexico and downed tools and left once there was no more pay. It was a very dangerous place to work and live, with Apache raids contributing the most to the death toll in the region.

When Mexico won independence, in 1822, they confiscated all Spanish missions and expelled all Spanish missionaries. From 1831 to about 1859 when the United States acquired the territory as part of the Gadsden Purchase, San Xavier del Bac was without a priest. During this period, the local Indians were caretakers of the mission and protected it from the Apaches.

In the 1950s some preservation attempts on the building went disastrously wrong, with the outside coated with cement, which draws in water and accelerated the decay of the masonry. The paintings and frescoes inside were varnished and varnish turns black with age.

The church is now being meticulously restored, inside and out, by artisans. The cement coating is being removed and replaced with the original render, made of sand, lime and the sap of the prickly pear. The inside is being carefully cleaned and the art restored.

The church is spectacular, with ornate paintings, statues and artefacts. As a working church, there were many people lighting candles and praying to their saints.

We then drove a few miles south to the Titan Missile Silos on the I-19. The I-19 is an anomaly in the US in that it uses the metric system, so all signs are marked in kms not miles. It was signed in 1980, when the US had signed an Act to convert to metric. Sadly, it all proved to be too hard and the Act was repealed in 82. The highway, though, has stuck with it because of the expense in replacing 400 road signs.

The Titan Missile Site tour is amazing. This preserved Titan II missile site, officially known as complex 571-7, is all that remains of the 54 Titan II missile sites that were on alert across the United States from 1963 to 1987.

The tour began with a short film about the site and the history of the Cold War, then we donned hart hats and headed underground.

There was an elaborate security system, with codes that had to be burned after use, sealed blast doors that could only be opened if every other door was shut and so on. The entire underground complex was on springs, so if an earthquake or a detonation hit, the complex was protected. Lots of blast doors later, we were in the command centre. The guide ran a simulated launch, with 2 keys that had to be turned simultaneously, alarms, and lights. The entire process, from key turn to launch was only 58 seconds. It was very sobering to imagine what the world would have been like if the launch had ever occurred. The US had a defensive only policy, so they would only fire if fired upon. The Titan II could deliver a nine megaton thermonuclear warhead to its target more than 6300 miles (10,000 km) away in less than thirty minutes.  The crew didn’t know where the missile would go once launched, the targets are still a classified secret.

We then walked down a tunnel to the missile silo. When the base was decommissioned the other silos were destroyed and left uncovered for several months to allow the Soviets to confirm their destruction via satellite pictures. This one has its launch doors locked open halfway and sealed off.

We were able to look inside the launch silo – 140 feet and 8 stories down, with the ICBM in place. The ICBMs were fuelled by a mix of chemicals that self ignite on contact, hence the fast launch process. After seeing the silo from the 3^rd floor, we went back to the surface and looked in from the top. It is a unique experience to get that close to something that was a big part of history.