Airman who stand ready to unleash the most destructive power known to humanity will have to make due with 1980s technology for a while longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Global Strike Command plans to start replacing antiquated phones, computers, printers and other equipment in nuclear silos starting in the second quarter of fiscal 2018, said Col. Scott Edwards, chief of the command’s ICBM requirements division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reason it is taking so long to upgrade office equipment is that any equipment that goes into a nuclear-certified system needs to be nuclear-certified as well, Edwards told Air Force Times on Feb. 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That includes \u2013 I know this sounds strange to the folks out in the world \u2013 printers, and [computer] drives and all of these things that we are talking about,” Edwards said. “So there are significant Air Force and nuclear security requirements they have to meet.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process of upgrading the silos is funded to 2020, said Mark Silliman, deputy chief for the ICBM division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We’re going to do it as smartly as possible and from an operational perspective because this block upgrade is not the only modification that we have going on,” Silliman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Air Force may end up using off-the-shelf equipment, but it would have to modify it so that it works with the other technology in nuclear silos, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A lot of the concern has to do with proximity with crucial circuits, so we have to make sure that that off-the-shelf item is packaged correctly so it can operate correctly with all the cyber and nuke-surety concerns addressed,” Silliman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several agencies have to make sure that the equipment in nuclear silos meets standards, so the process of upgrading any technology takes a long time, Edwards said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That’s why we can’t just go out to Walmart or Target or wherever and just buy these off the shelf and plug them right in like we would at home, because they have to be hardened; they have to be able to withstand blast with shock and nuclear effects and all of that kind of stuff,” Edwards said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both the phones and computers in nuclear silos are 80s technology that were fielded in the early 1990s. In April, CBS News’ “60 Minutes” showed that missileers misileers<\/span> still use computer with eight-inch floppy disk drives and their phones work so poorly that it is hard for them to hear what people are telling them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The phones are not used to transmit launch orders, Edwards said. Rather than replace the phones, computers and other equipment separately, Global Strike Command plans to upgrade all of the equipment at once, Edwards said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “That process, the disadvantage is it is difficult and long to go through, but the advantage is: We know this process very well, we’ve been doing it for almost 50 years, and it works,” he added. “So we know when we go through this process the equipment that is certified will work as advertised.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The antiquated phones, computers and printers in nuclear silos will be replaced starting in fiscal 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":58674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[16,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1185],"class_list":["post-30226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DEXCHGW3VJEI5JAN4NMNBE34CY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2015\/02\/28\/new-phones-computers-for-nuclear-silos-are-years-away\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n