>> now what school district it is in, and how close to downtown and other activity centers.

It is a missile silo. They didn't put those things close to city hall. According to GoogleMaps it appears to be about a kilometre from Nekoma, a town of 50 that may or may not have a school. The next town is Langdon, ~2000 people 30km away. Your choice of schools and/or coffee shops might be limited.

Lol. The nearest Tesla supercharger is in 85km away ... in Canada. The nearest US charger is in Fargo, 200km away. Nearest starbucks is 100km. But given that the roads all go north-south or east-west, I would add about 50% to those numbers for driving distance. If there is a nowhere, this is the middle.

Nike facilities were built close to residential areas in the northeast. Sprint is not an ICBM either. It's an ABM and not such a massive rocket that it would need a large safety zone around the launch site.

The safety zone isn't to protect against the missile exploding. It is to keep the facility far enough away from the likely targets of incoming warheads that they could differentiate warheads from decoys. (As warheads enter the atmosphere the lighter decoys fall away. You want to be at 90* to the warhead flight path to best see this.) Some site were indeed near residential areas in other parts of the country but those were not protecting suburbs. They were protecting more distant targets: population centres and military facilities.

Is that describing the best spot for the interceptor itself, or the radar guiding the interceptor? (Not necessarily at the same site, and I can imaging reasons why separate sites would be better.)

In the days before perfect network connectivity? Both. There are also time delay issues. You want the sensor (radar) the 'computer' and the launch site all close together so they can coordinate the intercept without communication delays, without long radio links that are likely useless during nuclear war.

Sprint was meant for raw speed. It famously accelerated at like 100g. The shortest intercept is one that is launched perpendicular to the incoming warhead. The interceptor goes out vertical as the enemy warhead is coming in more horizontal on its way to the city 400km down the road from the interceptor base.

It probably depended on the geography. I know in the case of the site in Golden Gate Recreational Area, the (Nike not Sprint) interceptor site is/was near the fort there. The control and radar systems (which have been at least partly brought down) were originally on a hill overlooking the site. I don't know if the control/radar system also controlled other interceptor sites or not.

I grew up literally next door to one about 20 miles west of Philadelphia. Most of the Nike sites are just ruins at this point like the one on Angel Island but there's one just over the Golden Gate from SF that's the most fully restored site in the US and gives tours. https://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm

They initially had conventional warheads as I recall and they were primarily intended as bomber defense. They'd explode a warhead above a flight of bombers so they'd be hit by a massive shock wave.

Eventually, Nike missiles had a selectable yield nuclear warhead. The first salvo was set to intercept at 90 miles away, with 40 Kiloton of yield. The next was 45 miles away, and 20 Kiloton, and the "Hail Mary" was directly overhead, with 2 Kiloton yield.

> may or may not have a school.

The listings was very clear:about whats around them "Langdon, 9 miles [about 15km] Amenities: grocery store, gas stations, school district, ... "

I did not say that Langdon did not have a school. The sentence you quote is about Nekoma, the town immediately beside the listed property, which at 50 people is clearly so small as to likely not have any formal school.

"School district" is also very different than "school". Being in a district means that you are in a district that has school not that that school is anywhere nearby. It may be a long bus ride every day. Being in a district only means you will not have to home school your kids. And Langdon has one highschool. Choices are therefore very limited.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langdon,_North_Dakota

The day I decide where to live based on nearest Starbucks, please, just shoot me.

Amount of nearby Starbucks branches around was a consideration for me when I picked my last flat.

This is not for the occasional Frappuccino but as a simple indicator how popular a particular neighborhood is. It also tells some, but not much, about the demography too.

Starbucks is also one of the cheapest places you can get coffee/sweet drinks in my city so it’s nice to have some around ^^

Cheapest? The one Starbucks within 50 miles of me is the most expensive place for coffee.

I live in an arguably upper middle class neighborhood of Istanbul, one of the biggest metropolitan cities in the world.

Most coffee shops around me are fancy third wave shops, making Starbucks a cheap choice. I’m sure I can find a cheaper places couple neighborhoods away but streets are not flat, traffic is always terrible and dangerous for pedestrians.

I checked out of curiosity and we have more than 200 branches within 50 miles of me.

Turkey population density: 109/km2

Population density in my state: 6.35/km2

50 miles/100km is nothing in many parts of north america. I have in all honesty driven that far just to pick up groceries.

Driving a distance to procure groceries is a far cry from driving to a Starbucks.

When moving, there is nothing wrong with checking out how far away Starbucks is. It worked for me and it is far...

I would love to know an estimate on what annual upkeep would cost you. For all I know, it costs $200k annually just to keep it from flooding.

Maybe you could get the Flex Seal guy to do his next commercial there and seal it for free.

It's located here https://www.google.com/maps/@48.8490754,-98.4321807,564m/dat...

103rd Ave NE & 99th St

I'm spoiled; I'm disappointed when I go into 3D mode and the structures don't rise above the ground.

It's not good to use any Google products or services. Here is a good alternative: https://zoom.earth/#view=48.84914,-98.431622,18z

It's perfectly reasonable to use Google products or services because, quite often, they are just flat out better. I'd say that's the case here since the Google one has much higher fidelity at higher levels of zoom. Besides, zoom.earth uses Microsoft imagery so pick your poison if you have issues with mega-corps with supposed privacy issues.

If Google ever makes a better product (and they don't, see this thread re youtube: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28338364), it is merely a con to get people to use their products. They aren't doing it in good faith, it's just to trap people so they can abuse them.

> I'm not seeing an address for the site. I need to know what school district it is in, and how close to downtown and other activity centers. Maybe that helps explain the $50k wiggle room?

Some of that information is on the site.

Langdon, 9 miles Amenities: grocery store, gas stations, school district, multiple banks, shopping, drug store, building supplies, hardware store, hotels, movie theater

Winkler, Manitoba, 45 min Amenities: chain restaraunts and stores including Wal-Mart

Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1.5 hours Amenities: large metro city with many cultural attractions

Grand Forks, ND, 2 hours Amenities: large metro city with many cultural attractions

To be honest, I was just being cute with the school district/amenities. What I really want to do is use the address to look it up on a light pollution map to see about using for an astronomy site.

Funny

For the price of a down payment on a small Silicon Valley home, you too could own a 36-acre missile site!

Downtown? The entire county that this is in has fewer than 4k people living there. This would be for someone who wants to get as far away from activity centers as possible while still staying in the lower 48.

But does it have fiber internet?

I was wondering the same, and surprisingly, the answer is yes.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALbqZ9rQQ_E around 6:14.

If you can afford $500k in cash, you can afford to have fiber run to you.

You need to run fiber from somewhere, and something tells me there is no connection office in few hundred miles.

I suspect they didn't change the terms when they marked it down by nearly 2/3rds.