In an underground base in Wyoming, there lies one of 450 Minuteman-3 missiles, tucked away and ready to launch upon the president’s command.
The missile lies on an unassuming fenced-off property, beside a neighboring ranch where cattle graze among of hay. Yet it has the potential to cause 20 times the amount of catastrophic damage of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
“60 Minutes” got a rare look inside this base and discovered that floppy disks are still used to operate missiles such as this. Big, old floppy disks, too, not the smaller 3.5-inch kind that you’re probably thinking of, but big 8-inch disks.
The silo’s 23-year-old deputy missileer (yes, that’s a real job) said she had never even seen a floppy disk before looking after this silo that could obliterate the planet.
This all probably seems quite concerning knowing that the world’s deadliest weaponry is being safeguarded by ancient technology, but operating them is an extremely costly business. It’s estimated that to operate the arsenal and modernize the systems would cost $350 billion over a decade.
The more concerning part, however, is that the “irreplaceable” configuration and maintenance guides are on old formats and are degrading to the point where data is becoming unrecoverable. According to the Department of Energy, this all means that the safety and reliability surrounding America’s weapons could soon be an issue.
But hey, who specializes in hacking 50-year-old technology? Surely that’s a positive, right?
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.