About Oscar-Zero
For decades, a small cluster of ordinary-looking buildings north of Cooperstown concealed a room built for an extraordinary job. Beneath Oscar-Zero, missile crews waited underground with the equipment needed to control part of America’s Minuteman nuclear missile force.
Oscar-Zero was one of the launch control facilities operated by the 321st Strategic Missile Wing. The missile field spread across thousands of square miles of North Dakota, with underground launch facilities scattered across the prairie and crews maintaining continuous alert.
Today Oscar-Zero is preserved as part of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site. Guided visitors can descend roughly sixty feet underground to the launch control center, passing through a massive blast door into a compact room filled with consoles, communications equipment, switches, status panels, and the hardware of Cold War nuclear command.
The historic site also includes November-33, a former missile launch facility east of Cooperstown. Its silo has been filled rather than left as an open missile tube, but the surface structures remain part of the preserved site. Tour schedules, seasonal hours, and group requirements can change, so visitors should check the State Historical Society of North Dakota before arriving.