One of the great things about chemical propulsion rockets is that they
can take off with little to no prep at all.
Ready to go at the press of a button.
The scary thing is that, when left alone for a long time, and these rockets
have been, "the plates" keeping the chemicals from meeting each other ahead of schedule, corrodes, just a tiny bit at a time. each time raising the possibility
of premature ejaculation just a tiny little fraction.
I think you're talking about the Titan missiles, which use hypergolic propellants. The Minuteman missiles are solid fuel, so there are no separated chemicals.
There are separated chemicals, the hypergolic means no ignition source required.
Which to his point would be even more scary, but just isn't the actual real world risk with the way the things were designed.
Plus hypergolics are usually toxic on their own, even without mixing and/or booming, in a quieter, more-deadly-to-technicians way.
Spills and defueling and meeting well-intentioned but bad safety guidelines that require abundant fiddling were the real source of danger. More fiddling == bad.
Iirc, the fuels/oxidizers/reagents/ whatever-liquids mainly behaved like aluminum oxidizing, such that reaction with the tanks components actually created an increased buffer layer of oxidation/ protection.
Tank corrosion wasn't high on the list of risks after it was figured out on a per-chemical basis.
I think it's one of the aspects covered fairly well in (the great, often posted) Ignition! [0]
The minuteman missiles are solid fueled. There are no liquids and no hypergolics involved in the stages which loft it towards the enemy. Structurally it is more similar to a candle than a fuel tank. There are no spills or defueling with this system. This is a fact. In this system you won’t find a separate oxidiser/fuel. The two components are mixed together and they form a kind of rubber like cylinder with a hole in the middle. The hole is shaped appropriately so the rocket engine burns at the right rates.
There are hypergolic fuels at the very end of the rocket in the payload. They are used for deorbiting and to control the return vehicles. But it is a much smaller part of the whole missile. (Both by mass, and by encapsulated energy.)
Yes I was speaking to the historically overblown concern of fuel and oxidizer tank corrosion, which yes, does not even apply to minuteman or solid fuels.
Should have prefaced that response with a big IFF/WHEN old liquid rockets.
The scary thing is that, when left alone for a long time, and these rockets have been, "the plates" keeping the chemicals from meeting each other ahead of schedule, corrodes, just a tiny bit at a time. each time raising the possibility of premature ejaculation just a tiny little fraction.