
Please note: This building and its associated structures and parking lot are not open to the public and have no public facilities. Please only stop your vehicle on the grass across the road.
The building today called the Daniel Beard Research Center, where National Park scientists are based, was originally called Integrated Fire Control and built as the headquarters of the Nike missile base. It housed soldiers and officers, included a mess hall and recreational facilities, and had offices for all “up range” purposes. The Battery Commander would work from this building, and if the decision was made to fire the missiles, the launch buttons would have been pressed here.
Integrated Fire Control buildings had to be kept at a distance from the “down-range” facilities, where the missiles were kept. First, if there were a mistake with one of the missiles, the distance provided some protection of the people “up-range.” Second, this is where the radar towers stood, now gone. Five towers were here, both to track incoming aircraft and to track any missiles launched from the base. If the radar tracking the missiles were less than 3000 feet (about 1 km) from the launching missile they were to track, the missile would travel so fast as to be out of the range of the radar before the radar could lock onto it.
The building today called the Daniel Beard Research Center, where National Park scientists are based, was originally called Integrated Fire Control and built as the headquarters of the Nike missile base. It housed soldiers and officers, included a mess hall and recreational facilities, and had offices for all “up range” purposes. The Battery Commander would work from this building, and if the decision was made to fire the missiles, the launch buttons would have been pressed here.
Integrated Fire Control buildings had to be kept at a distance from the “down-range” facilities, where the missiles were kept. First, if there were a mistake with one of the missiles, the distance provided some protection of the people “up-range.” Second, this is where the radar towers stood, now gone. Five towers were here, both to track incoming aircraft and to track any missiles launched from the base. If the radar tracking the missiles were less than 3000 feet (about 1 km) from the launching missile they were to track, the missile would travel so fast as to be out of the range of the radar before the radar could lock onto it.
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Itineraries across USA

Acadia

Arches National Park

Badlands

Big Bend

Biscayne

Black Canyon Of The Gunnison

Bryce Canyon

Canyonlands

Capitol Reef

Carlsbad Caverns

Channel Islands

Congaree

Crater Lake

Cuyahoga Valley

Death Valley

Dry Tortugas

Everglades

Gateway Arch

Glacier

Grand Canyon

Grand Teton

Great Basin

Great Smoky Mountains

Guadalupe Mountains

Haleakalā

Hawaiʻi Volcanoes

Hot Springs

Indiana Dunes

Isle Royale

Joshua Tree

Kenai Fjords

Kobuk Valley

Lassen Volcanic

Mammoth Cave

Mesa Verde

Mount Rainier

North Cascades

Olympic

Petrified Forest

Pinnacles

Rocky Mountain

Saguaro

Shenandoah

Theodore Roosevelt

Virgin Islands

Voyageurs

White Sands

Wind Cave

Yellowstone

Yosemite

Zion