On May 3, 1967, the Earth and Space Research Laboratories were a top news story. Never heard of them? Well, they were located right here in the North Country. And, they were tied to another unusual bit of area history, something we refer to now as "the old missile base" sites.
In the early 1960s, Plattsburgh Air Force Base was considered vital to our national defense, and intercontinental ballistic missiles were installed at a dozen locations, encircling Plattsburgh. Those bases housed Atlas missiles (carrying nuclear payloads) in huge underground launch silos.
From this unusual location in the Northeast, the missiles could deliver a nuclear hit on parts of southern Russia. (Thank goodness we were safe due to our regular "duck and cover" drills at school! We often wondered why the government didn't just install a row of school desks to stop the effects of a nuclear attack. It had to work: otherwise, why would our teachers have told us to duck under our desks?)
By 1966, new Titan missiles rendered the Atlas missiles obsolete (they had lasted only about five years, and it cost $20 million to build each site). It didn't all go to waste, though. The abandoned silos were given new life as part of an endeavor that sounded more like it belonged in an episode of Star Trek (which had just begun its TV run).
By early 1967, in an agreement with the federal government, the missile sites at Lewis in Essex County and Black Brook in Clinton County were already part of a research initiative probing the area of cosmic ray physics. According to experts in that field, the missile launch silos were used as cosmic ray "telescopes."
The availability of the silos was a research windfall, as the program was operated by SUNY Plattsburgh's College of Arts and Sciences, but available to all 58 SUNY sites, and the college system could never have afforded to construct the facilities necessary. The silos were convenient, ready-made laboratories with great potential.
With that in mind, SUNY Plattsburgh in 1967 "issued an invitation to scientists from throughout the world to conduct research at the sites. It's an ideal location for scientists who have to work in shielded, controlled-atmosphere, vibration-free laboratories."
© 2010 Lawrence P. Gooley