Back at base as we pass the unloved barbecues outside homes on Missile Avenue, the other half of this northerly outpost’s mission looms out of the blanket of white; the unmistakable black silhouettes of a flightline full of B52 bombers.
The US nuclear mission is known as the Triad, because it has three legs – the 450 inter-continental ballistic missiles in their silos surrounding three air force bases in Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota; nuclear submarines operating out of ports on the east and west coasts, and the lumbering giant bombers based here in frigid Minot and in contrastingly humid Louisiana.
Minot is the only base to host two legs of the mission – and just as the missileers are on duty every day, the ground crews on the wind-whipped runway send bombers on training missions all year round.
The bombers, designed on the back of a napkin after the Second World War, were an engineering solution to one of the problems of that conflict: too many planes did not make it home after attracting enemy fire.
The B52s, with their eight engines, are the great survivors of US military history, built to carry nuclear weapons in the Cold War and seeing service as conventional bombers in conflicts from the Vietnam War to the first Gulf War, when they showed their range flying for an unbroken 35 hours and 14,000 miles from the US and back to hit targets in Iraq.
The missileers on their 24-hour shifts underground have to battle boredom, while the ground crews who get the B52s aloft have an almost inhuman struggle against the elements.
Dressed in thermals, Gore-Tex layers, fleeces, flying jackets, wool hats, three pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks, perhaps a balaclava and certainly a facemask, they work a 30-30 schedule, of 30 minutes outside followed by 30 minutes in a heated truck, so long as the temperature stays above minus 32C (-25F).
If the temperature drops as low as “negative 44” (-44F) they can only work outdoors for 20 minutes per hour. Finally, if it falls below minus 43C (-45F), they have to stop work.