Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex
The Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex (SRMSC) was a cluster of military facilities near Langdon, North Dakota, that supported the United States Army's Safeguard anti-ballistic missile program.
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Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex : brutalism
Insane boondoggle of a backstory. Basically a colossal waste of $6B taxpayer money ($34B in 2024 dollars) because it only operated for 6 months before being decommissioned as ineffective by Congress. Present activity is blockchain mining.
This looks like conspiracy theory jet fuel. Just needs a floating eye hologram above the pyramid.
I found it in a r/brutalism tweet so I knew it was real. But my brain still asked itself "Maybe it's really AI art anyway?"
It certainly doesn't seem real. It could also be from a sci-fi movie. Or if there were figures in black (or red) hooded robes - a 1970s horror movie.
And that gets closed down after 4 months of operation and becomes a mining outpost for shit coin.
This looks like some shit out of a bad 80's SciFi matte painting.
So cool as fuck!
I sometimes wonder what it was like being a Cold War Era STEM guy who got a job in defense contracting just so he could make some cabbage so they could buy a house, waifu and 2.5 kids somewhere warm, but then your first internship lands you in some depressing as fuck concrete cube in Buttfuck North Dakota. Yeah sure you're making the equivalent of 250k in 60s bucks but, like, Jesus that has to be a depressing existence.
Thought he was just some real estate guy with a gambling addiction and a drinking problem?
I'm pretty sure his career was working for a DoD contractor before retiring and settling into a lifestyle of the things you mentioned.
Looking it up, yeah he did some auditing for them but I don't think he was ever living in a missile silo in northern Nevada or anything
