With the collapse of oil prices and the plummet of the Russian economy, there's been a lot of good hardware on sale for fire sale prices. Last month I found a really nice Russian medium range nuclear missile launch facility. It's not a huge one of course, but one of the small ones they spread around the country. It has four silos, each with a single warhead missile.

I was hoping to get some suggestions on how to set up some nice automation for this new system.

1. Mood lighting. I really want the silos to look cool inside, so I want some colored lighting that I can control. Or, if someone pisses me off and I decide to go to DeathCon 4, I want to be able have the red blinking lights stuff like they always have in the movies.

2. A targeting screen. I want to have a screen with a map of the surrounding states on it, so that I can click on a place in order to target it. Hopefully it'll be in red as well. Are there any Z-Wave enabled targeting systems out there?

3. I want to be able to play Ride of the Valkyries really loud in the silos during the launch sequence, because it really gets me pumped up. What would be a good system that would let me do that for four silos?

4. I need a good launch sequencer. The ones that came with the system are OK, but I'd like to get a better one. I want it to be able to count down over the audio system from #3, and to say things like "retractor arm retracting" and "all systems nominal" and stuff like that. Do I need a neutral wire in the silos for the launch sequencer?

5. I need a hub to control it all. I know a lot of people are down on hubs that use the cloud but I'm OK with it. Yeh, maybe the internet will be down and I'll have to scrub a launch or something, but it's not like Butte Montana is going to pick up and move overnight or something. They'll still be there when the internet connection comes back. And, yeh, maybe someone will hack into my hub and launch a missile or something, but I've got four. And, in the end, who would really be that motivated to do all that work to hack into my system just so they can launch a nuclear missile or something? So I'm not too worried about that.

6. The silos currently have big, heavy metal doors with those turning wheel type locks on them. I want to replace those with modern doors that open on voice command or maybe using one of those retina scanners. Are there any Z-Wave based retina scanners? And they have to open and close really fast and make that 'swooosh' sound, like on Star Trek. I've found a couple I like the look of, but they really don't make a good swoosh sound. If I could get them from Home Depot that would be all the better, since my mom gave me a gift card for my birthday. I also need a much smaller one for my dog, Ruffles. Maybe I could have a sensor on his collar to open it when he comes up to it. I was a little worried about security at first; but, I mean, who would hurt a dog just to get access to a nuclear launch facility?

7. I need really good web browser support. Sometimes I travel and I may need to be able to initiate a launch remotely. I don't mind opening up some ports on my browser. It should be safe. I'll set it up so that I have to type in "BlowedUpRealGood" before it'll enable the launch buttons on the screen.

8. The walls of the silos are made of 3" thick plate steel. Is that going to be an issue if I use Z-Wave?

9. It would be really nice if it could send me an e-mail when I get down to like three or four eggs in the fridge.

Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Once I get it all set up, I'll post a video that shows how it all works so that everyone out there can understand it. Maybe I can open up my web interface for folks to play around with as well, since I'm going to make it really nice looking and folks might enjoy trying it out. They'll just need to be careful.

I don’t know if this is a joke or your being serious?

Did you actually buy this in Russia?

Wow, I always think that I'm miles over the line of believability and folks still take these parody posts seriously :-)

I knew you weren't serous when you expected Z-Wave to work!  :)

I know, right?

You'll also want to conceal the control mechanism so that it will be impossible to locate. I suggest modifying a DirecTV RC73 remote for this purpose. Two reasons:
*Well, first, it's a DirecTV remote, so nobody would think it would operate a launch facility. Sometimes these are slow just changing DirecTV channels!
*Several people have told me lately that it's a zigbee device, so you've got two-way control. That's always nice.

By the way, we know these were actually made in China (the launch facilities), so, to answer the previous question, no.

And as regards the poser of the question, maybe he thought he was being funny.

Maybe so. I may have overreacted because I have made a number of these types of posts (only slightly less out there) that started serious discussions of the merits of the thing I was talking about.

You got DefCon levels backwards:
1 is critical
4 is non-issue

I think it's slightly inappropriate to tell  a man with a cilo problem which way his defcon is supposed to point.

He could point it at a shithole country :>)

Wait -- you mean CeeLo, right?

At least you'll need to bond the grounds.

I turned it the other way, so that I can go as high as I want. Leave it to the military to come up with such a limited system. If I've had a bunch of Red Bulls, and I want to go to ten, my system can accommodate that.

Well, you need to get your terminology right if you want to be taken (un)seriously. It's not 'DeathCon', it's 'DeafCon'. Also, you'll need some kind of cable if you want the signal to pass through those 3" walls, so maybe you could get some S-Video cables and couplers, so you don't get dragged into orbit when the missiles launch.

You might look into some X-10 lamp modules, if you really want to make this communication system expandable. Being assignable, security shouldn't be a problem.

As far as a browser, AOL may be available.

Good luck with this.

DeafCon, is that a measure of how loud "Ride of the Valkyries" needs to be playing?