Get the latest tech news

NASA aircraft uncover Cold War nuclear missile tunnels under Greenland ice sheet

"We were looking for the bed of the ice and out pops Camp Century. We didn't know what it was at first."

(Image credit: NASA)Construction on Camp Century began in 1959, but the base was abandoned in 1967 due to the costs and challenges of keeping the tunnels from collapsing in the ever-shifting ice sheet. Project Iceworm sought to use Northern Greenland as a launch site due to its proximity to the Soviet Union and because of the remoteness of the location, according to the 2007 article " The Iceman that Never Came" published in The Scandinavian Journal of History. "The key concept was to deploy the missile force in 'thousands of miles of cut-and-cover tunnels', or rather covered trenches, whose floor would lie 28 feet beneath the surface," the article states.

Get the Android app