Re-imagining a Decomissioned Missile Silo: The future of documentary storytelling and emerging technologies
Speculative Devices Lab
Author
10/08/2023
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59
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Description
What if we could repurpose cold war era missile silos in Nebraska as a laboratory and museum open to the public to explore the past, present, and future?
In the 1960s, the Atlas F missile west of Seward, Nebraska, USA was housed in a silo and fueled before an elevator would lift the weapon up for launch. The missile at this site was never launched.
Students and Researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln are planning and designing a testing facility for ice core drilling equipment Atlas-F missile silo.
The proposed facility would also include educational outreach and exhibition space.
Upon completion, the Ice Coring and Education Silo Center will be the first facility of its kind in the world.
The Speculative Devices Lab uses technology and collaborative storytelling methods across Architecture and Emerging Media Arts as a way to bring in the past to help shape the future. We work between the physical into the digital and vice versa.
We are using LiDAR scans and photogrammetry via drone capture that Rogue out of Kansas City captured, We are also experimenting with NeRFs (neural radiance fields), and Real-Time 3D technologies RT3D in addition to 2D video and images.
https://arts.unl.edu/carson-center/news/interdisciplinary-unl-research-team-re-imagines-decommissioned-missile-silo-through
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- [00:00:00.745](birds chirping)
- [00:00:05.672](computer clicking)
- [00:00:11.404](rooster crowing)
- [00:00:22.676](birds continue chirping)
- [00:00:26.836](light music)
- [00:00:46.682](light music continues)
- [00:00:57.900]Essentially we're an interdisciplinary team
- [00:00:59.820]using technology and collaborative story telling methods
- [00:01:02.550]across architecture and emerging media arts
- [00:01:05.040]as a way to bring in the past and help shape the future.
- [00:01:09.347]We work between the physical into the digital,
- [00:01:12.600]and vice versa.
- [00:01:13.773]Currently we're using LiDAR scans,
- [00:01:17.190]photogrammetry via drone capture
- [00:01:19.299]that Rogue out of Kansas City captured,
- [00:01:22.290]we are also experimenting with NeRF's,
- [00:01:24.420]neuro radiance fields, real time 3D technologies,
- [00:01:28.440]in addition to 2D video and images.
- [00:01:31.320]Essentially we're trying to create
- [00:01:32.670]a new language collage of different story telling methods.
- [00:01:38.872](crickets chirping)
- [00:01:39.705]So we can see my little cursor here flying.
- [00:01:43.170]The little white line there is the path,
- [00:01:45.390]so you can see the zig zag I flew before,
- [00:01:47.220]and it's currently flying,
- [00:01:49.380]I don't like to zoom out over here to the green dot
- [00:01:51.240]to start its path.
- [00:01:52.628](machine beeping)
- [00:01:54.330]There's its current view.
- [00:01:57.270]We can create 3D meshes or things along that line,
- [00:02:00.450]but we could still do several hundred acres fairly quickly
- [00:02:03.139]and generate topos and contour maps.
- [00:02:06.870]We typically are doing buildings, so a lot smaller area,
- [00:02:10.680]but being able to do that in a very rapid
- [00:02:13.319]or short amount of time
- [00:02:14.790]as opposed to where we do it with a laser scanner.
- [00:02:16.650]I am Ash Eliza Smith, I work here
- [00:02:19.860]at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts,
- [00:02:22.800]and I run a lab here that has a working group
- [00:02:25.860]that focuses on expanded realities.
- [00:02:28.375]Thinking about spatial story telling and locative media.
- [00:02:32.250]Our team compromises land use planners, place makers,
- [00:02:36.090]architects, engineers, community members, scholars,
- [00:02:39.450]and artists creators.
- [00:02:40.860]And one of our primary goals is to think
- [00:02:42.810]about how to go beyond a digital twin of a site
- [00:02:45.016]to create interactive stories.
- [00:02:48.240]The extraordinary history of the missile silo
- [00:02:50.340]combined with its repurposed objectives
- [00:02:52.387]will also provide novel opportunities
- [00:02:54.776]for engagement, education, and tourism.
- [00:02:59.730]My name's Brian Kelly,
- [00:03:00.690]I'm Associate Professor of Architecture
- [00:03:02.250]in the College of Architecture.
- [00:03:03.930]And one of my research agendas
- [00:03:05.250]is into the abandoned Atlas F Cold War missile silos,
- [00:03:11.070]and specifically looking at the construction of them,
- [00:03:14.670]and the ways in which they had to kind of
- [00:03:17.940]overcome some pretty major hurdles
- [00:03:19.470]to be able to get them built.
- [00:03:20.760]I'm using contemporary imaging technology,
- [00:03:24.300]photogrammetry and LiDAR to then be able to document
- [00:03:26.774]the way that they sit right now and comparing that
- [00:03:30.540]to the way that they were intended to be built
- [00:03:32.520]through the archival documents so from the 1960's,
- [00:03:35.820]so the construction documents.
- [00:03:37.470]So with Rogue visual design
- [00:03:40.500]we used a LiDAR to then understand
- [00:03:43.830]exactly dimensionally what the building looked like,
- [00:03:46.770]and you know its exact sizing and things like that.
- [00:03:50.040]They would use that then to well first of all,
- [00:03:52.710]visualize the project, but then to be able to verify
- [00:03:55.830]whether or not their designs fit within the existing space,
- [00:03:58.740]and then to you know build a complete and accurate
- [00:04:01.650]sub as builds for it.
- [00:04:02.910]One of the main reasons why we need a facility like this
- [00:04:05.963]is that typically if you wanted
- [00:04:07.710]to do drilling down in Antarctica
- [00:04:09.270]you need to be able to test your permits.
- [00:04:11.111]Currently what they do is that they either drill
- [00:04:13.500]into a really really small test hole that they have.
- [00:04:16.080]Or else they pay to fly all the equipment
- [00:04:18.360]up into the Arctic regions, Alaska, places like that,
- [00:04:21.930]in order to drill into the ice there.
- [00:04:24.033]This would allow us to design an ice column
- [00:04:28.260]that you can kinda personalize to test new places.
- [00:04:32.115]The way we would've designed this ice column
- [00:04:34.380]if we wanna be able to have things like fresh ice,
- [00:04:37.699]or dirty ice, or maybe even drill into some water.
- [00:04:39.750]So we can customize that ice column
- [00:04:41.520]to be able to explore places
- [00:04:42.840]that haven't been explored in Antarctica yet.
- [00:04:44.640]So the university's had a really long history
- [00:04:46.560]of ice drilling as a result of some collaboration,
- [00:04:49.680]it goes back into the '70's and '80's and '90's
- [00:04:54.060]with the Polar Ice Coring Office
- [00:04:56.070]with the Ross Ice Drilling Project through here.
- [00:04:58.890]So this would be like the next step
- [00:05:00.789]to sustain a lot of the prior research
- [00:05:04.020]and technological development
- [00:05:06.510]supporting researchers in the polar regions
- [00:05:09.076]that would be held here at University of Nebraska
- [00:05:11.910]to be able to continue that legacy.
- [00:05:13.260]So University of Nebraska could stand out
- [00:05:15.450]as a leader in drilling ice drilling equipment technology
- [00:05:20.430]because we could design while we were testing
- [00:05:23.400]and really get things right.
- [00:05:25.020]We're probably looking, three, four,
- [00:05:27.810]perhaps eight years down the track if everything goes well.
- [00:05:31.590]And the beauty of a lot of this
- [00:05:33.240]is that it's not just the ice drilling test facility,
- [00:05:35.790]but there's so many broader portions of this as well
- [00:05:38.400]that come with Cold War history,
- [00:05:40.253]the legacy of the missileer that worked in these,
- [00:05:44.940]plus an opportunity in an education mode
- [00:05:47.520]to use this unique facility for education,
- [00:05:50.130]to bring you know climate change research to the front,
- [00:05:53.670]to bring drilling technology
- [00:05:55.219]which also folks you know folks here in Nebraska
- [00:05:58.260]with irrigation wells et cetera.
- [00:06:00.450]So it's a kind of a broad opportunity
- [00:06:03.270]to expand the universities reach with this facility,
- [00:06:07.020]and to really integrate across campus entities
- [00:06:10.560]a single purpose here to the benefit of Nebraskans,
- [00:06:12.900]the nation as well.
- [00:06:14.947](birds chirping)
- [00:06:15.780](light music continues)
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