You've probably considered diving in some interesting places - under Arctic ice, into WWII submarines, along reefs where huge hammerhead sharks can be seen up close and personal, and maybe into caves and cenotes. The odds are good though, that you have probably not thought much about diving into a huge missile silo filled with water. Whether or not you've pondered the possibility or not, there is actually a missile silo you can dive in, located near Midland, Texas. If you're terrified of deep, dark, holes, this is not the place for you. If you want to expand your horizons though, then come on down - the water's fine.
Diving Valhalla: What to Expect
Constructed with approximately 7,847 cubic yards of concrete and more than 1,250 tons of steel reinforcements, the world's largest indoor deep-diving training facility was once used to house a nuclear-tipped Atlas missile. 82 feet long and once used as part of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile program, then decommissioned and used to propel astronauts to space, the missile was enormous. After it left, the site was abandoned, and over the decades, it was filled with almost 2 million gallons of crystal clear groundwater. You can dive to a depth of 127 feet in this 60 foot wide dive site, and your instructor can see you well and put you through your paces, without the poor visibility most other technical dive sites in Texas suffer from.
Offering the chance to become certified for rebreathers and mixed gases, deep dives, night dives, rescue dives, and altitude dives; the site lets divers learn vital technical skills in a safe and completely controlled environment. Getting into the silo to dive is just as challenging as facing your fears and learning to go deep. First, you've got to climb from the entrance down five flights of stairs into a pair of corridors bordered by blast doors, and finally, into a huge room which was once the silo's control center. Incredibly, this part of the silo also served as a living area for missile control staff. Luckily, you're only here to visit!
Once you're geared up, you'll walk through yet another dimly lit corridor, where an opening 25 feet above the water's surface awaits. Look up, and 45 feet above you, you'll see the missile's launch doors. After surveying your surroundings for a moment, you'll walk down a stairway to a floating platform, where you'll adjust equipment one last time, and prepare for your descent into the unknown. If the idea of taking these stairs up and down makes you feel queasy, be thankful you didn't visit in the days when the dive training silo was newly opened; then, divers had to climb up and down a pair of extension ladders which were chained to one another, and there was no floating platform. Gear would be lowered down, and you would have had to don it while floating, and while clinging tenaciously to the ladder.
It's nice and cool inside the silo. Air temperature is maintained at 68 degrees, and the water temperature is 60 degrees. There are no thermoclines to deal with as there would be in a lake, and ambient light from the surface reaches down to about 60 feet into the silo. Freedivers visit to practice their techniques, and landlocked technical divers visit to keep their skills sharply honed, too.
This site is not open to the public, and reservations must be made in advance through Family Scuba Center in Midland Texas. There is a fee to dive, and once you're finished, you can relax and enjoy all the topside pleasures Midland and nearby Abilene have to offer - best of all, you can cross "dive in a missile silo" off your bucket list.