Hey all...
The missile bases are for the most part decommissioned... There are Atlas style (that NASA used later to launch Mercury missions and moon missions) and then there are Titan style which are supposed to be more advanced.
I was looking at the older Atlas missile silos. They had one that had a silo 180 feet deep (and full of water) and yes I eventually thought that turning it into a mushroom farm to supply the midwest with exotic mushrooms would be one heck of a thing to do with that unused space. Unfortunately, the one that I looked at had all of the floors and support for the floors removed (scrapped) so, it is an empty concrete and rebar tube 60 feet in diameter and 180 feet deep with big old blast doors on the top that don't open because someone scrapped the garage door opener. Rebuilding 180 floors or more with wood is not the greatest idea in the world, and so I would have to have steel put back into it just to build floors and that would cost more than I would ever dream of spending on something like this.
Another Atlas site which is closer to me is an earlier version of the missile silo. I would say it is more of a bunker than a silo because the missile is stored sideways and then the roof rolls back on rollers and the missile is propped up when they are ready to set it off. I like the 'Atlas E' missile bunker style the best because it looks like less of a hassle to work with to turn it into something and the missile bay (20 feet wide x 120 feet long) would be great to turn into a garage, gallery, museum, mushroomery, or even a storage place for produce. (As you can tell, I have not given much thought what I would do with the place provided I had the funds...

).
The only problem with all of the sites that I would like is that they are in the sticks in the middle of nowhere, and since the invention of the internet, it has made a lot of these places magnets for people who want to explore... so if you wanted the place for privacy or you want a secret place to store your 'apocalypse' provisions, you would be invaded every other day by people think the place was abandoned or public property.
I've gone so far as to create a name for my art studio and how I would build out and make the place work... Then there is the issue of money. (It always comes up, seems to stop me cold with any building plan I have... so, I have to scale down, or forget the idea altogether...)
Okay, it's been a while since I have futzed with HTML but here are some links and my attempts at posting images of my FangDing.
https://www.pinterest.com/armanflint/fang-dingo/
(Preview shows the photos so I'm good...)
When I found this Fang Ding at an estate sale, I waited till the last day to buy it. (Everything is marked down half price on the last day). I was surprised it was still there at the estate sale, and for some reason it did not register with me that how old this thing was... I just liked it because it was brass and was one of the coolest sculpted piece of brass I had ever seen. After I had it for a few days it occurred to me that it wasn't brass but bronze (20-30lbs which is a lot of bronze). I took a couple sculpture classes where we cast bronze and I know the difference in the skill level of whomever created this Fang Ding to my skill level was far superior to mine... to put things in a better perspective; We used modern equipment to melt the metal down, make the molds, used kilns to burn the wax out of the molds, stage hot molds into the sand to pout molten metal into the molds while wearing modern asbestos fire suites... If your mold gets cold your pour will only fill part of the mold and you have to start all over... The process can take up to a week or longer... Whoever made the Fang Ding did it without modern equipment and poured two pieces that fit together with almost machine like precision. (So, there is that.)
So, I have had this Fang Ding sitting around for about 5+ years and I finally got around to sleuthing more about it online... and I had gone up to Kansas City for a day trip to see the Nelson Atkins museum and of course they have a couple Dings in their collection, but none of theirs have lids but they all have distinguishing features like mine so that got me excited... and there is a lot more info online these days about the Fang Dings and it looks like if I ever want to sell this, I have to go to NYC to go to Sothesby's because most of them start at auction at $40K. it just blows me away that I have been unemployed & sleeping next to a priceless artifact for the past few years...
I've been putting it out there on the net to see if there is a Fang Ding collector or a museum who absolutely has to have one in their collection for the right price, but I am discovering that is a little complex to unload high dollar items. I've been trying to manifest a buyer with the intent of buying one of the missile bases, but I may have to settle for less when my buyer comes. I can still dream though.
